Reconquest of the Water 
culus flammula), Epilobium palustre, the common Iris, 
and several grasses. 
Then when these marsh plants or rushes have dried 
up the ground sufficiently, willows, alder, and birch 
may manage to grow, and in the process of time form 
small waterside plantations, 
The water-lily zone is not perhaps of very much im- 
portance, though it is the most beautiful of them all, 
The stem of the white water-lily is a great, curved, thick, 
fleshy affair, from which the long-stalked leaves and 
flowers are given off. Frih records a stem 6 feet long 
and ro centimetres in diameter, of which pieces were 
sold in the public market at Uster as a charm against 
cramp. The Victoria Regia of the Amazon, whose leaves 
may be 60 feet across and can bear a weight of 60 
kilogrammes (132 Ibs.), is the finest of the series. 
The depths usually affected by these plants and their 
neighbouring associations are nearly as follows :— 
Deepest Levels of 
aoe Reeds. Water-lilies. | Pondweed. | Mosses, 
Frith (Switzerland) si 3.5 metres | 4 metres | 6 metres 
(12 feet) | (13 feet) | (19 feet) 
Huron Valley. a 2.5 metres | 6 feet 18 feet 
(8 feet) 
Magnin (Jura) a 3-5 metres | 6~8 metres 
(9-16 feet) | (21 feet) 
Bruyant (France) . a 8 metres | 75 feet 
(26 feet) 
Forel (Switzerland) a 180 ,, 
St. Germains, Glas- 
gow . s . | 1% foot 4h feet 94 feet 
The mosses shown in the last column seem to be able 
to grow at the greatest depths. Those small greenish 
grey Algz, the Characez, have been found at depths 
even of go feet, but they are not usually found when a 
132 
