36 PLANTS GROWING IN WATER. 
group of insectivorous plants, those that are so formed as to 
entrap insects, which they digest and assimilate as food. In 
this way, by taking advantage of defenseless members of the 
animal world, they show a very unprincipled disregard of all 
plant tradition. But aside from the moral consideration, this 
little plant is most wonderful. The bladders are furnished with 
small hairs or bristles which keep up a wavy motion and create 
a sort of current that sucks the unsuspicious creature within its 
folds. A hinged arrangement, or lid then closes sharply down 
upon him, and the bristles make it their business to see that he 
does not escape. 
But from our childhood we are taught that an object cannot 
sink that has attached to it a bladder filled with air. We there- 
fore ask, how does the bladderwort reach the bottom of the 
pond to spend the winter? Simply because the little plant is 
clever. It takes time by the forelock, ejects the air from its 
bladders, and calmly allows them to fill with water. They then 
bear it below, where it remains while its seeds are ripening, 
and until it feels the spring sunshine thrilling it with a desire 
to rise again and to bloom. ‘The bladders then, with small cer- 
emony, throw out the no longer useful water ; the plant rises, 
and they fill again with air that floats the plant during the 
summer, 
ARROW-HEAD. (Pilate 7X.) 
Sagittaria latzéfolza. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR ; RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Water-plantain. White. Scentless. General, All summer. 
Flowers : growing in whorls of three on a leafless scape. Calyx : open; of 
three sepals that fallearly. Covol/a: open ; of three rounded petals. Stamens: 
very numerous, on the receptacle. /%sté/s: distinct; very numerous. The 
flowers are imperfect: the pistillate ones being those of the lower whorls and 
the staminate ones those of the upper whorls. Zeaves: sagittate; nerved. 
Scape: varying greatly in height. 
The demure arrow-heads are surely the Quakers of the 
flower world; and that they do not condone frivolity, we may 
gather from the way in which they keep their pistillate and 


