A MEADOW MUD-HOLE. 



159 



not be merely ranked as one of many flowering 

 plants ; it is of too commanding an appearance 

 for this, and to literature will prove a boon. As- 

 ters, golden-rods, and buttercups can have a well- 

 earned rest. 



Years ago the cultivation of the American 

 species proved a failure, and those who are now 

 best capable of judging still record the curious 

 fact that the native lotus is much more difficult 

 to establish in our waters than the Eastern, and 

 does not grow with quite the same luxuriance. 

 Its introduction by the aborigines along our 

 Eastern seaboard has been -mentioned ; perhaps 

 it has lost vigor since it lost their care, and has 

 disappeared excepting where its environment 

 was peculiarly favorable. And the question 

 arises, after all, Is it in the strict sense a native ? 

 May it not, indeed, have been brought hither in 

 prehistoric times ? The question of a superla- 

 tively ancient communication between the conti- 

 nents is a tempting subject for study, and how 

 appropriate when resting in the shade of the 

 Eastern lotus ! Such a train of thought need 

 not stir up any ghost of a mythical lost Atlantis. 

 Still, the American form has certain marked pe- 

 culiarities. The mature torus has a decided con- 

 striction some distance from the insertion of the 

 stem, wanting in the foreign species, and the 

 seeds of the former are globular instead of dis- 



