192 ROUND THE YEAR 



chiefly to thank our vegetables, especially the potato, 

 the cabbage and the turnip. 1 



DUCKWEED. 



July 15. Just after the Wharfe enters Bolton 

 Woods there is on its left bank a tract of swampy 

 ground with ditches and pools. In summer these are 

 overgrown with Duckweed, which is, as all the world 

 knows, common everywhere in stagnant water. To- 

 day I was walking to Barden when I stopped to 

 hunt for aquatic Insects among the Duckweed. I saw 

 a peculiar yellow light reflected from the floating 

 Duckweed, and on looking closely perceived that 

 almost every frond was in flower. The yellow light 

 was reflected from the anthers, which stood out from 

 clefts in the edges of the fronds. Man sieht nur 

 was man weiss. A few years ago I had never seen 

 Duckweed in flower, and supposed that it seldom 

 or never flowered in England. A botanical friend, 

 Mr. Cheesman of Selby, took me to see it in 

 flower, and since that time I have discovered how 

 common the flowers are and how easily they may be 

 seen by an attentive observer. 



The fronds of our commonest species (Lemna 

 minor) are oval, but not quite regularly so, and bicon- 

 vex or lens-shaped. One end is semicircular, and the 



1 The reader who desires fuller information respecting 

 English agriculture and gardening in olden times may be 

 recommended to study the chapters by R. E. Prothero'in Traill's 

 Social England^ and Rev. W. Denton's England in the Fifteenth 

 Century. 



