. Carnegie Institution of Washington publication. STRUCTURE. 39 to float on water and easily detached from the parent plant and from one another by reason of the brittleness of the tissues of the isthmus, these tubers serve to distribute the plant widely. Waterlily leaves (" lily-pads ") are eaten by large herbivorous animals (deer, &c.), which vvacle about in the shallow water; these must detach numberless tubers and leave them floating about, as a person does when wading among them. Doubtless also wading birds, turtles, bull-frogs and many kinds of fish accomplish the same end.
. Carnegie Institution of Washington publication. STRUCTURE. 39 to float on water and easily detached from the parent plant and from one another by reason of the brittleness of the tissues of the isthmus, these tubers serve to distribute the plant widely. Waterlily leaves (" lily-pads ") are eaten by large herbivorous animals (deer, &c.), which vvacle about in the shallow water; these must detach numberless tubers and leave them floating about, as a person does when wading among them. Doubtless also wading birds, turtles, bull-frogs and many kinds of fish accomplish the same end. Special mention of the structure of these tubers will be made later. Each of the Nymphaeas except the group just mentioned possesses a short, thick, erect caudex. Where this remains throughout the year. FIG. 13.—Rhizome of ff. tuberosa. Natural size. in a Avet and more or less vegetative condition, it dies off in the lower part as it elongates above, about keeping pace in its elongation with the amount of sedimentation taking place around it. Such conditions habitually surround the Xanthanthae and Chamaenymphaeae, and these cannot otherwise survive. Species of the Hydrocallis group often have a like perennial growth, as also sometimes have the Lotos and apocarpous groups in cultivation. But the habit of all of the truly tropical members (Lotos, Hydrocallis, Apocarpiae) is to be dried off completely at one season of the year. In this case the large mature blooming plants die and rot away. N. flavo-virens alone, with some of its hybrids, is able to withdraw from vigorous flowering growth into a dry, resting tuber. Young plants, however, readily store away all of their nourish- ment in the caudex, which then forms a tuber from the size of a pea to that of a hen's egg (or much larger in N. flavo-virens]. Such resting. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these ill
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