92 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



There is a crowd of charming plants among 

 which you may choose to fill the water of your 

 aquarium, such as the hydrocharis, pontederia,* 

 and many others. One word only upon those 

 most worthy of attention. You are, doubtless, 

 acquainted with the sensitive plant, or mimosa 

 pudica, the leaflets of which withdraw and con- 

 tract when they, are touched. There exists an 

 aquatic species of this, which you can have float- 

 ing upon the parlor aquarium, for it is very 

 small. Its leaflets are exactly similar to those of 

 the terrestrial sensitive, and possess the same 

 retractile properties. 



Manner of grafting Bice. 

 If you put at the bottom of your aquarium a 

 pot filled with good earth, where you have sowed 

 some grains of rice which have not had the husk 

 taken off, they will come up ; and you can have 

 the pleasure of grafting the plants from these 

 seeds upon reeds. For this purpose you must 

 cut, by a slanting cut at one of its joints, a rice 



* Frog-bit a pretty little British water-plant with white flow- 

 ers. Mrs. London's Ladies' Companion for the Flower Garden. 



