RIVER GARDENS, ETC. 



plant. It is excessively pretty, and its white- 

 cupped, three-petalled flowers are shown peeping 

 above the water in Plate VIII. (No. 2). It is a 

 plant of convenient dimensions for the Aquarium. 

 The Water Soldier is also a plant of most manage- 

 able dimensions; and its compact Aloe-like growth 

 and handsome white flower make it very desirable 

 for tanks of the smallest dimensions. (Plate VIII., 

 No. 1.) Its military name is supposed to have 

 been given in consequence of its erect, soldier-like 

 appearance. The pointed leaf resembling, by a 

 stretch of the imagination, a sword, which is in 

 fact so sharp, that it often pricks the fingers of 

 collectors ; the flower, too, has been supposed to 

 resemble a bronze helmet, surmounted with a white 

 plume. The roots of the parent plant must be 

 placed firmly in the sand or soil at the bottom of 

 the tank, from whence it will send forth runners, 

 each of which, when it has reached the surface, 

 forms a separate plant, which, after flowering, sinks 

 again to the bottom and takes root in the bed of the 

 pond or tank, to send up fresh flowering offsets to 

 the surface, as its parent had done before it. When 

 at the bottom of the tank, and in the under-water 

 period of its growth, this plant gives off oxygen 

 freely, and forms, also, a grateful shelter for small 



