216 CALIFORNIA GARDEN FLOWERS 



who have adobe soil may make an excavation, taking care that good 

 soil is replaced in the bottom; the tubers may be planted in this pool 

 which should be kept flooded during summer. During the winter 

 season, while the plants are at rest, the pool will require no water, 

 except what is furnished by the winter rains. The roots are tuberous 

 and shaped like bananas. If it is desired to transplant them it should 

 not be done until the growing season arrives. 



Other Aquatics. There are many other aquatic plants which do 

 not belong to the water-lily family, but which are both interesting and 

 beautiful, and help to make variety in the water garden. Among these 

 is the water hyacinth, Eichhornia crassipes major. It has swollen leaf 

 stems, filled with air cells. The plant will grow floating around in 

 deep water, but flowers most freely where its roots can take hold of 

 the soil. The blossoms are rosy lilac, produced in large spikes. 

 Eichhornia azurea, more recently introduced, has a creeping habit 

 like a verbena, and flowers of a bluish color. These two plants do best 

 if partially shaded from the full sunshine in summer, and sheltered 

 from cold winds in winter. 



Limnocharis Humboldtii, or the water poppy, has flowers of a 

 lemon-yellow color, and somewhat resembles the California poppy of 

 the fields. The plant prefers shallow water. 



The Cape pond weed (Aponogeton distachyon), though not a showy 

 plant, is interesting on account of the fragrance of its small white 

 flowers and its habit of producing them in winter. 



Ouvirandra fenestralis, the lace leaf or lattice leaf, has somewhat 

 narrow leaves, about a foot long, which grow entirely under water. 

 They are of an olive-green color, and consist merely of the framework 

 or veins of the leaf with the fleshy part entirely absent, thus present- 

 ing the appearance of a beautiful piece of network or skeletonized 

 leaf; hence the name lattice leaf. 



Some aquatic plants, besides the Water Hyacinth, are found float- 

 ing on the surface of the water, without attaching their roots to the 

 soil. Pistia stratiotes, the water lettuce of Florida, is another, also, the 

 Azolla or floating moss, resembling a beautiful moss or selaginella. 

 This I have found growing wild in California. 



The Environment. Our water gardens have a background of semi- 

 tropical trees and plants. How great an advantage do we here possess 

 over those who live in colder latitudes, when we can use for this pur- 

 pose such plants as the feathery papyrus, giant grasses, large-leaved 

 caladiums, musas, the towering bamboo and a variety of noble and 

 beautiful palms. 



