The American Botanist 



VOL. XX JOLIET, ILL., AUGUST, 1914 No. 3 



**2/ou scarce can say 

 Sf it be Summer still, or Autumn j/et^ 

 father it seems as if the twain had met 

 J^nd Summer, beiny loath to away, 

 yp^utumn retains her hand and beys of her to stay. 



THE WATER HYACINTH 



By Willard N. Clute. \ 



^ I 'HERE are many different species of flowering plants that 

 ^ live in the water, hut very few^ that are not rooted in the 

 mud at the bottom. Rooted plants are secured against being- 

 washed away or floated down to the sea on the streams and 

 rivers, but since they can occupy only the shallows, a large area 

 of water surface is still left to be occupied by such plants as 

 have taken up a floating existence. Among the lower plants 

 the floating habit is common. A large number of the algae are 

 unattached, and miany of the one celled forms do not merely 

 float passively, but move actively about in the water like ani- 

 mals. Among the liverw^orts, several species of Riccia are 

 floating plants and even the ferns have several species with this 

 habit. The little water fern (AzoUa) covers great stretches 

 of stagnant w^ater with its pink-tinged fronds, and its near 

 relative, Salvinia natans, may be found in similar situations, 

 though seldom so abundant. A tropical fern, Ccratopteris 

 thalictroidcs, is known as the floating fern and may be found 

 even in brackish water in the quiet inlets along the Gulf Coast. 



Of floating species of flowering plants, the most abundant 

 and wide spread are undoubtedl}' the duckweeds, though their 



