OR, THE HOME-CULTURE OF FRESH-WATER PLANTS. 
has been greatly admired, and few amateurs of 
Aquaria, who have seen it, have failed to procure 
immediately a few roots for their own tanks. 
Anacharis alsinastrum is another plant which? 
if no longer to he termed exotic, is, at all events, of 
very recent foreign extraction. It should find its 
place in every Aquarium. It has been called the 
New Water Weed, or, by some, Water Thyme, from 
its slight resemblance to plants of that class, and its 
history is somewhat interesting. It was unknown 
in England so lately as 1842, when the late Dr. 
George Johnston, of Berwick-upon-Tweed, noticed 
it for the first time in a pond, at Dunse Castle, in 
the month of July of that year. Specimens were 
sent to the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, where it 
grew far too abundantly, and the refuse, which was 
from thence thrown into the Cam, has thriven with 
such extraordinary luxuriance that it threatens to 
form a serious impediment to the navigation of that 
stream. Erom Kew Gardens it has, in like man¬ 
ner, escaped into the Thames, where it is already 
one of the most abundant and troublesome of the 
water weeds; while in some of our canals it posi¬ 
tively threatens to put a stop to the navigation 
entirely. In the Aquarium, however, it is easily 
kept within bounds, and is exceedingly valuable, 
39 
