OBLONG POND-WEED. 82 



etc., have only submerged leaves, which are more 

 or less oblong. 



The species with floating leaves form refuges for many in- 

 teresting low forms of life, and the microscopist will find them 

 very fruitful in specimens for him. 



The name is from the Greek words, potamos, a river, and 

 geiton, a neighbour. 



Traveller's Joy (Clematis vitalba). 



When rambling, in chalky districts especially, our readers 

 will meet this climbing shrub at every turn, scrambling over all 

 the hedges, flinging its arms out over the way, and clinging 

 persistently to any branch or shoot it touches. It has a variety 

 of names, some of which may be applied at different seasons 

 by persons who think they are speaking of different plants. In 

 the early summer it may be the White Vine, or the Virgin's 

 Bower ; in autumn, when the feathery awns are lengthening on 

 its seed-vessels, it may fitly be called the Old Man's Beard, and 

 when winter has cleared most things away from the hedges, 

 but left these gleaming feathers in abundance, it may give the 

 Traveller Joy to see them as he passes. 



It is a perennial plant, wit,h a tough stem, climbing by means 

 of its leaf-stalks, which curl round any likely support, and 

 become hard as wire. The leaves are opposite and compound, 

 the leaflets usually five, the stalks of these also acting as 

 tendrils. The flower has no corolla, but the four thick sepals 

 are coloured geenish-white to serve instead. The stamens are 

 a crowd round the central cluster of many-bearded styles, which 

 afterwards elongate and become the " old men's beards." The 

 flowers, which are slightly fragrant, may be found from July to 

 September. 



The Traveller's Joy is peculiarly English, so far as its dis- 

 tribution in the United Kingdom is concerned. It is found 

 only to the south of Denbigh and Stafford. This, too, is the 



G 



