228 Pawson: Water-Plants as Land-Winners. 
some of them, as the Pondweeds, are often unpleasant to handle 
on this account. There are water Mosses, too, which show like 
é lumps of solid earth coated with black or green velvet, so much 
soil have these tiny plants contrived to amass. 
Not many things in Nature are more beautiful than these fen 
plants as we may see them in the summer time in the marshes of 
our eastern counties or elsewhere. They court the full sunshine 
the Great Spearwort displays its cups of polished gold, and the 
Sweet Flag unfolds its scented leaves; secure the white Water- 
Lily, though a treasure which a king might covet, floats on the 
still water. The common Reed, and the two 7yphe and Scirpus 
lacustris (which share among them the name of Bulrush) venture 
furthest into the water. With nodding plumes and banners flying, . 
brandishing their tall clubs and maces, they stand waist-deep and. 
yield no ground, well stayed by their branching root stocks which 
are fully as thick as their sturdy stems. In the open spaces 
_ between them, trusting in their shelter, many floating plants lie 
at anchor, some of them half submerged and unsuspected during 
- a great part of the year, the Water Lilies, yellow and white, the 
a prickly Water Soldier, the delicate Frogbit, and the lovely 
wis Water Violet; here, too, the hitherto unnoticed Uéricularia, 
suddenly rivalling a tropical orchis, displays its splendid spike 
of bloom, and claims our homage for evermore. As the water 
grows shallower the scene is even more gay, for the purple 
Loosestrife is abundant, though the yellow one is less common, 
and here the fern-like foliage of the Marsh Umbellifers, Water 
Hemlock, and Hogs’ Fennel grows about gay clumps of lilac 
Hemp Agrimony, and Yellow Iris, and rosy Flowering Rush. 
Water Plantains, Marsh Speedwells, and Stitchwort, and floating 
_ grasses bring us to the Mints and the smaller Rushes, and the 
dry land. Inch by inch as the result of this accumulation and 
decay, the land creeps in upon the mere ;-more and more solid 
grows the edge; the aqueous plants retreat from the too shallow 
margin, the terrestrial plants advance, finding firmer footing; the 
_ Sedges and Reeds crowd on their floating neighbours which need 
: space, and cannot endure their shade; these, too, press forward 
and the open water grows less and less; it is invested on every 
side, and it is plain that its complete soir is now only a — 
‘matter of time. 
a 
“Naturalist, i 
