RIVER GARDENS, ETC. 
plant. It is excessively pretty, and its white- 
cupped, three-petalled flowers are shown peeping 
above the water in Plate VIII. (No. 2). It is a 
plant of convenient dimensions for the Aquarium. 
The Water Soldier is also a plant of most manage¬ 
able dimensions; and its compact Aloe-like growth 
and handsome white flower make it very desirable 
for tanks of the smallest dimensions. (Plate VIII., 
No. 1.) Its military name is supposed to have 
been giyen in consequence of its erect, soldier-like 
appearance. The pointed leaf resembling, by a 
stretch of the imagination, a sword, which is in 
fact so sharp, that it often pricks the fingers of 
collectors; the flower, too, has been supposed to 
resemble a bronze helmet, surmounted with a white 
plume. The roots of the parent plant must be 
placed firmly in the sand or soil at the bottom of 
the tank, from whence it will send forth runners, 
each of which, when it has reached the surface, 
forms a separate plant, which, after flowering, sinks 
again to the bottom and takes root in the bed of the 
pond or tank, to send up fresh flowering offsets to 
the surface, as its parent had done before it. When 
at the bottom of the tank, and in the under-water 
period of its growth, this plant gives off oxygen 
freely, and forms, also, a grateful shelter for small 
31 
