LIMNANTHEMUM I.ACUNOSUM. FLOATING HEART. qc 



follows, therefore, that if the flower, which is essentially stem 

 and leaves, spring from a leaf-stalk, the leaf-stalk must itself 

 possess the same essential elements. Other plants will afford 

 the same lesson in other ways, and we take this one now, simply 

 because the occasion presents itself. Besides the position and 

 nature of the flowers, it will also be interesting to note that 

 roots and buds, making new growths, start out in close neigh- 

 borhood to the clusters of flowers, so that the petiole or 

 leaf-stalk becomes essentially a stolon, as in the runner of a 

 strawberry, differing from the latter in nothing but its erect 

 position. It is altogether a very good lesson as to how one 

 part of a plant grows out of, or is formed from, another or 

 other parts. 



The flowers themselves are very interesting. There are five 

 small sepals, as seen in Fig. 5, and, alternating with them, five 

 petals very prettily fringed and slightly incurved at the edges. 

 (Figs. 4, 3, 6.) Alternate with these, and opposite the sepals, are 

 five stamens, and alternate again with these are five glands. (Fig. 

 4.) These glands are possibly only another series of stamens, 

 which, by becoming absorbed by the petals in a very early stage, 

 have been aborted. The flowers open and close at regular 

 times of the day, but under exactly what conditions the writer has 

 not been able to determine. The roots remain in the mud dur- 

 ing the winter, pushing up in early spring, and by the end of 

 June the flowers appear from underneath the leaf-blades, only a 

 portion of these leaves, however, producing flowers. There ap- 

 pears no difference i.n strength or vigor between those leaves 

 which flower and those which do not, although there must cer- 

 tainly be a difference in nutrition in favor of the flowering leaves. 

 This, also, is a fact well worthy of remark and further investiga- 

 tion, as in most other plants such a difference in nutrition would 

 manifest itself in a diminished, or increased growth. 



It is said by some who have grown certain species of this genus 

 that they are very easy of cultivation, taking care of themselves 

 without any difficulty when once established. This one, how- 



