THE FROG-BIT— continued. 
exalbuminous and enclose straight embryos. It should, perhaps, be here pointed 
out that the staminate flowers contain a rudimentary, or rather vestigial, ovary ; and, 
conversely, the carpellate flowers have aborted stamens, a clear indication that this 
dioecious condition is not primitive but the result of a process of degeneration. 
The Frog-bit is a monotypic genus, a genus, that is, consisting of but a single 
species, and this species is native to Northern Asia and Europe. Growing, like 
many species of Ranunculus , in situations that are the haunts of frogs, the fancy of 
our ancestors seems to have supposed it to owe the heart-shaped base of its floating 
leaves to the bite of a frog, as is also expressed in the old generic name, from the 
Latin morsus , a biting, ranee , of a frog, which dates back to Rembert Dodoens in the 
sixteenth century. To avoid this two-worded name, Linnaeus renamed it Hydrucharis , 
from the Greek vS cop, hudor , water, and xapis, charts , delight. 
Floating on the surface of still waters, it neither requires nor possesses much 
that can be called a main stem, its “ radical ” leaves springing in a rosette from a 
most abbreviated axis. They are leathery in texture, round, obtuse, a reddish 
purple on their under surfaces, and from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter. 
The reddish under surface may, like that of many of the low-growing plants in the 
dense forests of the Tropics, be a means of converting the incident rays of 
light into heat, or may possibly serve also as a protection against fish. As 
is the rule with such leaves, the petiole retains the power of elongation by intercalary 
growth, and the stomata, or transpiration-pores, are confined to the upper surface. 
It is an interesting experiment to drive air or to draw water through these apertures 
by immersing the blade under water and blowing or sucking through the leaf-stalk 
with the mouth. 
From the base of the axis several slender transparent roots descend into the 
water, serving, perhaps, in part, like those of the Duck-weed, to prevent the plant from 
being blown over in the water, but furnished with numerous delicate root-hairs. The 
circulation of the protoplasm in these affords a striking study for the microscopist. 
Most cf the buds forming in the axils in summer develop into horizontal 
stolons, much as do the runners of the Strawberry, with new plants at their ends ; 
but in autumn large buds form on these stolons, become detached and sink to the 
bottom, where they hibernate in the mud, floating to the surface in spring and 
developing into new plants. 
The delicate white petals have a yellow base, with a fleshy nectariferous gland, 
thus resembling those of many other unrelated aquatic plants which are pollinated 
mainly by flies. 
There are generally three whorls of stamens with broad fleshy filaments and 
connectives, those of the middle whorl having a long club-like appendage ; and there 
are six united carpels with styles separating and bifurcating above. 
The numerous, minute, roundish seeds have a very remarkable testa of 
cylindrical cells with a spiral thickening which they emit when moistened. 
