56 PICTURING MIRACLES 



days while touring Florida, we saw them as what the 

 Floridians consider their greatest pest on the St. 

 Johns River, a stream a hundred or two hundred 

 yards wide great islands of them that had broken 

 loose from the rapidly growing plants along the 

 shore came drifting down stream. These plant 

 islands, often a hundred feet across and bound 

 tightly into a solid mass by the entwining roots, 

 would collide with other floating islands, be pushed 

 ashore and block the river with a beautiful mass of 

 green leaves and blue flowers. No steamer could 

 penetrate the solid mass until the jam was broken 

 up. The plant is about 99% water, so is of little use 

 for food. 



The Blue-eyed Grass of the Iris family is a dainty 

 little blue flower that grows usually in damp places, 

 but takes readily to cultivation. In our hill garden 

 in Berkeley it moved in, settled comfortably near 

 groups of English and Oriental Iris types, where it 

 grows larger, longer stemmed and of brighter blue 

 than as a wilding. An interesting personality, this 

 little flower, never losing its primitive habits. It 

 opens at 2 P.M. and closes at five with almost clock- 

 like regularity and, like the iris, the petals twist into 

 a hard knot as they die. If you put a dozen or more 

 in water, choosing buds of the same development, 

 they will open up like soldiers presenting arms. The 



