ee" 5 
BLADDERWORTS. 3 
of the water. ‘The little bladders themselves are somewhat flask 
shaped and flattened, and are very beautiful when seen through 
a magnifying glass. They are placed upon very short stalks 
upon the secondary veins of the leaf, close to the mid rib, so that 
there are two rows of them on each leaf, one row at either side 
of the midrib. A vein of the leaf passes up the front of each 
flask, giving rigidity, and branching round the orifice, which it 
greatly strengthens, terminates at the sides and back of the 
Opening in two or four bristles. The mouth of the flask is closed 
by an extremely delicate, almost invisible, membrane, having a 
minute slit in front, through which gases, no doubt, escape. 
The flowers are extremely pretty; they are bright yellow, 
growing four or five together in a raceme, which shoots up with 
a stalk some five or six inches above the water. In form they 
are not very unlike the flowers of a caleeolaria, being two-lipped 
and having a short spur. 
Utricularia minor is a much smaller species, not by any means 
so common, and generally found in small pools of water on peat 
bogs. The flowers are small and pale in colour, and as far as I 
have been able to observe, the plant is more frequently found in 
a flowerless state than even U. vulgaris. 
The third species, or variety, or hybrid, U. intermedia, I cannot 
describe from actual observation. It seems to be rare, and to be 
characterized by the leaves being tripartite. The vesicles aro 
are said to arise from branched stalks and not from the leaves. 
A strange misapprehension exists as to the economy of theso 
plants, and their method of propagation. Almost all authors 
have taken it for granted that the earlier observers were correct, 
and have copied one from another, as is too often the case, 
without verifying for themselves ; and the history of the Bladder- 
wort has thus become invested with a halo of romance, very 
pleasant to read, but untrue in many particulars. The Jntellectual 
Observer of October last publishes a translation of a paper by Dr. 
Schnetzler, in which he says of the genus Utricularia, on the 
authority of De Candolle :—‘‘ These utricles are rounded, and 
furnished with a species of moveable operculum, or lid. 
