MISS A. M. GELDART ON STRATIOTES ALOIDES, L. I95 
increasing quickly by runners and by many Hybernacula 
which, sinking into the depth of the mud, are not destroyed 
even in the most severe winter. The female plant, much 
rarer than the male, indeed almost absent from many localities, 
bears ripe fruit still more rarely ; perhaps the fruit is frequently 
overlooked on account of difficulty of access in deep ditches, 
and because the fruit does not ripen completely till late in 
October. For several years Klinsmann failed to observe the 
germination of the seed because the seeds were gathered in 
August, and accordingly unripe. In October, 1858, he found 
ripe capsules, took them through the winter in a glass of 
water mixed with muddy earth, and in May, 1859, obtained 
the first seedlings. Irmisch kept his ripe seeds constantly 
in water ; most of them germinated in the course of the next 
spring and summer (1862), others in 1863, some not till the 
Autumn of 1864. Klinsmann had a similar experience. 
Klinsmann points out that Gartner has represented the fruit 
quite correctly in his “ de Fructibus et Seminibus, tab. 15,” 
but that the seed belongs to Sparganium. According to 
Nolte the seed is 2 lines long, 1 line thick, but Klinsmann 
says that Nolte represented them too small. 
Lord Avebury made no original research as to the germi- 
nation of Stratiotes, but in his work on “Seedlings” (vol. ii. 
p. 559) gives a description of the seeds, embryo, and germi- 
nation, derived from the accounts of Klinsmann and Irmisch ; 
he makes no mention of the position of the fruit in relation 
to the peduncle nor of the distribution of the plant. 
The root does not emerge till some weeks after germination 
has commenced. Kerncr says (I. p. 752), “ The primary 
root produced from the seed of the Water Soldier is embedded 
in mud, and is therefore really a subterranean root ; after 
it has died off the whole plant rises up, remains oscillating 
below the surface of the water, and develops floating roots 
from its abbreviated leafy stem ; later the plant again sinks 
down and the floating roots again become subterranean.” 
I can find no statement as to the method of fertilization 
in Stratiotes — probably it is by some winged insect. At 
Sutton we noticed, in July, two or three little black flies 
