282 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



variation from the normal type of the family ; yet 

 not so strange, after all, as that of another variety 

 in the high mountain woods, which, finding neither 

 ponds to float in nor swamp to root in, has taken to 

 lodging as a parasite among the wet moss on tree- 

 trunks ; not so strange, either, as that of yet another, 

 which floats, but in the most unexpected spots, 

 namely, in the water which lodges between the leaf- 

 sheaths of the wild Pines, perched on the tree-boughs, 

 a parasite on parasites, and sends out long runners 

 as it grows along the bough in search of the next 

 wild Pine and its tiny reservoirs. 



" In the face of such strange facts is it very 

 absurd to guess that these Utricularias, so like each 

 other in their singular and highly-specialised flowers, 

 so unlike each other in the habit of the rest of the 

 plant, have started from some one original type, 

 perhaps long since extinct ; and that, carried by 

 birds into quite new situations, they have adapted 

 themselves, by natural selection, to new circumstances, 

 changing the parts which require change — the leaves 

 and stalks ; but keeping comparatively unchanged 

 those which needed no change — the flowers ? " 



Dr. Gardner mentions a Brazilian species of 

 Bladderwort which is only to be found growing 

 in the water collected in the bottoms of the leaves 

 of a large 'Tillandsia, in an arid part of the moun- 

 tains, at an altitude of 5000 feet. The Bladderworts 

 seem long ago to have diverged in their habits ; 



