THE VEGETATION OF THE LOWER WABASH VALLEY. 725 
its vicinity. This pond isa fine representative of a peculiar feature 
of the bottom-lands of the western and southern rivers, locally 
termed bayous,* lagoons or ponds, and in all essential respects 
is like hundreds of others in the alluvial bottoms of the lower 
Wabash. Following an old, almost abandoned road through the 
_ primeval forest, guided partly by the directions of the people in 
_ the neighborhood and partly by the memory of Dr.. S. who had 
been there several years before, we at length discovered, by an 
opening in the tree-tops, the close proximity of the pond. As we 
emerged from our tiresome passage through the tangled thickets 
of button bush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) which filled up that 
end of the pond and grew about 10 or 12 feet high, and stood 
upon its bank, a beautiful view opened before us. Entirely hemmed 
in by the surrounding dense forest which extended for miles in 
every direction, and into whose depths the fronting screen of 
rank and varied undergrowth prevented the eye from seeing — 
hiding even the trunks of the foremost rank of trees, there 
stretched away from us a narrow sheet of water, the calm 
surface of which was studded with a variety of beautiful aquatics, 
and its shores ornamented by a belt of extremely diversified 
herbage, which for variety and luxuriance we have nowhere 
seen surpassed outside the tropics. Along the shallow margins 
of the pond were acres of the magnificent Neluwmbium luteum, 
its broad circular leaves supported on upright stalks, 2 to 4 feet 
high, and appearing like a plantation of vegetable parasols, or 
else resting upon the surface of the water, with the stalks sub- 
merged; the wet banks, from which the water had gradually 
subsided during the summer by evaporation and absorption, were 
covered by a rank and varied vegetation consisting mainly of Po- 
lygonacece, —among which the drooping racemes of rose-colored or 
Carmine flowers of the Polygonum amphibium gave a gay and 
prevalent color,—and of tall and beautiful grasses and sedges of 
numerous species ; while mingled with these prevailing forms grew, 
_in the moister spots, patches of plants with striking and beautiful 
foliage and often handsome flowers as the Sagittariæ, and Hete- 
-tanthera with white flowers, Pontederia with similar habit and 
blue flowers, Echinodorus, “ blue-eyed grass” (Sisyrhynchium Ber- 
mudianum), tufts of flags (Iris), ete. As we passed along, 
wading knee-deep, sometimes waist-deep, through this rank herb- 
o 
* Pronounced bi-o. 
