206 A NATURE WOOING. 



young plants are swollen into bulbs which contain air 

 cavities. These serve as buoys to keep the plant above 

 water and prevent it from being overturned by wind 

 or waves. The leaves, flowering stems and roots of 

 the old plants become so thoroughly matted together 

 that they are with difficulty torn apart, and are there- 

 fore in no danger of overturning. The roots form a 

 dense fibrous .mass, often two feet in length, which is 

 submerged and absorbs food from the water. The 

 plant flourishes best in sluggish fresh-water streams 

 whose water is yellowish or brownish from the pres- 

 ence of an excess of organic matter. It will not live 

 in salt or brackish water, and though floated down in 

 large patches into the lower third of the St. John's, 

 it there soon dies. 



The plant was introduced into the St. John's about 

 1890 at Edgewater, four miles above Palatka. The 

 refuse from a pond, in which it had been cultivated, 

 was dumped into the river, and the hyacinth finding 

 the slow-flowing, turbid water in every way suited to 

 its needs entered on a stage of rapid growth and re- 

 production unprecedented in its history. In time it 

 almost wholly blocked the river above the railway 

 bridge at Palatka. Small boats with screw propellers 

 found it impossible to penetrate a large mass of the 

 plants, as the latter became entangled in the screw 

 and prevented it from turning. Large steamers going 

 at full speed come almost to a standstill when they 

 strike a floating mass of the hyacinths. Floating logs 



