145 
The Ettect of Dry Weather upow Water Llants. 
VERY one must have remarked in a general way that the 
dry weather of 1868 was different in its effects on different 
plants. That some were burned up directly and never came to 
maturity; that some struggled through the fiery ordeal, and 
flourished at last when the rain did come; that some were 
but very little affected throughout ; and a very few positively 
revelled in the tropical weather, Most people, at least most 
people who lived in the country, took note of these things and 
many interesting and valuable facts were recorded. 
But by no means the least curious were the effects which the 
dry weather exercised upon aquatic and semi-aquatic plants. Of 
course we should be quite prepared to find dry-land plants much 
affected when every drop of moisture was abstracted from their 
roots, and they were obliged to grow in hot, loose dust, or in soil 
that had been dried and baked almost to the texture of stone. 
We should, probably, expect to find semi-aquatic plants even 
more injured when, instead of growing with their roots in the 
water, the water had receded from them, and left them high and 
dry upon the land; and yet, strange to say, with respect to the 
water plants, the reverse of this was what really took place in 
many cases ; for it was observed that many plants which usually 
grow at the edge of the water, or upon very swampy ground, but 
which were growing in 1868 upon dry land were stronger, larger, 
and especially flowered more freely than usual; and that even 
some decidedly aquatic plants appeared to be much benefited by 
growing on soft mud instead of being quite immersed in the 
water. 
These observations were almost forced upon my notice one day 
in July, 1868, when I and two fellow-botanists made an excursion 
to Oakmere in Delamere Forest, There are in Cheshire a great 
