AQUATIC PLANTS USEFUL TO THE MICROSCOPIST. 51 



plant. What that part is we can only guess. Botan- 

 ists call them internal hairs ; but they are hard, sharp, 

 and brittle. They are hollow, too, and their surface is 

 roughened by minute elevations, as though fairy fingers 

 had sprinkled them with crystal grains. I never see a 

 white water-lily without in imagination seeing those 

 long stalks rising out of the black mud up through the 

 dark water, with their entire length illuminated by the 

 sparkling of these internal star-like gems. The whole 

 plant contains them, even the root. The common " spat- 

 ter-dock " hideous name ! the Nuphar, also conceals 

 similar stellate hairs within its stems, but they are there 

 larger and coarser, as becomes a coarser plant. The 

 leaves of the Nuphar, however, are not a good micro- 

 scopical hunting-ground, as they usually stand high 

 above the water. 



MYRIOPHYLLUM (Fig. 8). 



This is not rare in shallow ponds and slow streams ; 

 it even occurs in running water, but there it is not 

 worth gathering, so far as any adherent microscopical 

 life is concerned. Indeed, no running water is a good 

 locality for free-swimming creatures, because the current 

 sweeps them away, and so scatters them that it is not 

 possible to make a collection. But where Myriophyllum 

 grows it usually grows abundantly. It forms long green 

 streamers, round and thick, sometimes more than an 

 inch in diameter and several feet long, yet it looks soft 

 and feathery. The leaves are very numerous, and each 



