2 BLADDERWORTS. 
itself by sending out runners on all sides, which take root in the 
cups of other Zillandsias growing near, uniting many of them in 
a network of Utricularia. It is a plant much larger than our 
British species, and must be very beautiful, for it sends up long 
flower stems which support large blossoms of a purple colour. 
Our Utricularias are also waterplants—so truly waterplants, 
that they do not even take root in the soil, or mud, but float in 
water just below the surface. Books upon botany describe their 
‘‘root’? as being “‘ much-branched,” but for my part I have never 
been able to find any root at all, at any stage of their growth. 
The fact is they are root-less, and only float about as I have 
stated, deriving all their nourishment from the water by means 
of their finely-cut leaves. Probably the lower leaves of the 
plant, discoloured from incipient decay, have been mistaken for 
roots. It is quite possible, however, and extremely likely, that 
all the leaves act by absorption precisely like roots, just as, in 
some leafless plants, roots are modified in appearance and 
structure to serve the purposes of leaves. 
Three species are described, or perhaps more properly two, 
with an intermediato one, which may be a variety, or, it may be, 
a hybrid, between the other two. They are all found in ditches 
or in deep pools, floating just below the surface of the water. 
The commonest and largest species, Utricularia vulgaris, may be 
taken as the type of the genus, as regards British kinds. It is 
of tolerably frequent occurrence, but I think, often overlooked 
from the fact that sometimes for several years it flowers so 
sparingly as to escape notice. It consists of slender, very brittle, 
trailing, branches, one or two feet in length, which are densely 
clothed with very elegant pectinated leaves. The leaves are, in 
fact, nothing more than the ribs and veins, for being altogether 
submerged, the plant has no necessity for breathing pores, nor 
for the fleshy portion with which the stomata communicate. It 
is therefore not developed in the ordinary form, but is converted 
into a number of very elegant little bladders, or utrieuli (whence 
the Latin name of the plant), which contain air and are supposed 
to be the organs by which the plant is buoyed up to the surface 
