1/2 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



small homely, portable herbarium under his arm, and a 

 stick in his hand, both of the last being his constant com- 

 panions in his travels. In one of the deep peat holes filled 

 with water that abounded there,. he observed floating on its 

 surface a somewhat rare plant, in beautiful flower, then 

 found only at one or two spots in the Vale, stations that 

 have disappeared with the mosses in which they grew. 

 This was the Greater bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris), 

 a botanical and physiological curiosity with interesting 

 habits. 



During the greater part of the year, it lies in a confused 

 mass upon, but quite detached from, the bottom of the pool 

 in which it lives. It is held down by the utricles or 

 bladderets that give it its name, which are then filled with 

 heavy mucus. When flowering time arrives in June, this 

 mucus becomes replaced by a kind of light gas, which bears 

 the plant to the surface, to enable its golden-yellow flowers 

 which stand erect half a foot above the water to feel 

 the sun and air, and fructify their seeds. This done, the 

 mucus re-forms in the bladders and sinks the plant again to 

 the bottom, where the ripened seeds are deposited in the 

 soft mud, to propagate the race when the parent has died. 

 These little bladders are otherwise very curious, opening 

 inwards with an elastic valve, and catching water-beetles, 

 which it is said to digest and consume. Like the Vallis- 

 neria and other plants, this species is often adduced as a 

 striking illustration of the wonderful adaptations of nature 

 for specific ends.* 



* This plant also once grew, as Mr. J. M. B. Taylor informs me, in 

 the old moss at Balfluig, near Alford, where also was found the smaller 

 species, the U. minor. But this moss is now cultivated land. 



