CHAPTER I. 



SOflE PLANTS THAT LEAD EASY LIVES. 



There is a story told of a very lazy boy who lived in a 

 beautiful sunny garden. The garden was full of trees that 

 bore delicious fruit, but to gather this fruit was quite too 

 much trouble for the lazy boy ; so he spent his days lying 

 under the trees where, when he was hungry, he had only 

 to open his mouth and the fruit dropped into it. Now 

 there are plants the world over that seem to live about as 

 easily as the lazy boy ; I mean plants that live in the water, 

 for their food consists only of water and what is dissolved in 

 it ; so they lie in a bath containing their food and have 

 only to absorb what they need. 



Nearly all California children have noticed in reser- 

 voirs, water ditches or ponds, a green scum floating along 

 the edges or on the top. Perhaps you have not looked at it 

 very closely, nor thought of it as made up of little plants. 

 Take some of it now, put it in water in a white dish, and 

 examine it carefully. Perhaps all of it will be soft and 

 slimy, but you are likely to find some that clearly consists 

 of threads or nets. 



The green net is called water-net. If you have found 

 good specimens you will see that the nets are really little 

 closed bags, perhaps like drawing No. i, Fig. i, or they 

 may be more slender. Sometimes the bags are several 

 inches long, and the nets coarse, that is, the holes or 



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