HOOT. 



serve no other purpose than to supply the plant with 

 nourishment, having no fixed place, but drifting hither 

 and thither with the waves. 



13. The little miniature plant, duck-meat (Lemxa 

 minor), that covers the surface of so many of our ponds 

 and bayous, is a familiar example of the unfixed, floating 

 aquatic plant, while the NYMPHiEA odorata, common pond- 

 lily, though often found in water from ten to fifteen feet 

 in depth, is ever anchored firm and strong. Thus moored, 

 it sways upon the tide like some fairy barque laden with 

 beauty and perfume. 



14. A plant called by our Mexican neighbors the sicmprc 

 viva belongs to the Lycopodium tribe, and seems to be the 

 connecting link between all the other mentioned roots. 

 It possesses the extraordinary power of lying dormant and 

 apparently dead for an indefinite period, months or years, 

 in an atmosphere however dry and unfavorable to vegeta- 

 ble life, and then to be called into perfect and active ex- 

 istence again by the application of water. A dead, crisp, 

 unsightly thing was brought to me by an officer of the 

 army, who had found it, during a hard wind, blown like a 

 dry bur through a mountain-pass in Arizona. It lay in 

 his haversack over a year, and when he brought it to me 

 it was literally " a root out of dry ground, without form or 

 comeliness." Following his directions, I placed it in a 

 shallow saucer of water, and what was my astonishment to 

 see it commence in a few minutes to expand and grow 

 green, its black, crisp roots becoming flexible and golden, 

 and soon a plant not unlike a rose in shape, with imbricated 

 leaves, expanded its living green cup to my delighted gaze, 

 and the Resurrection Eose, as it has been happily called, 

 in all its mysterious beauty stood before me. I have been 

 told by those who have had the opportunity of observing 

 its habits, that this plant has no fixed place of abode ; 



1*3 . What can yon tell of the root of the Lemna minor? Nymphcea odorata ? 

 14. 'What of the aiemive viva f Why is it called the Rcsuirectiou lio?e ? 



1* 



