Page:The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet.djvu/34

24 to keep animals in such vessels, they would still be acceptable for the formation of aquatic gardens.

Beauty of form and adaptability to confinement are the requisites for this purpose, and the more lakes and rivers are explored, the more the botanical department of the aquarium will be extended, both as to ornament and usefulness.

Water Soldier.—Among the plants easily attainable, and which combine grace of outline with cleanliness of growth, and tendency to create oxygen, I can recommend, first of all, the famous water soldier—Stratoides aloides—a lovely cactus-like plant, which grows equally well with or without a root, as indeed most water-plants do. In form it closely resembles the tuft of herbage on the crown of a pine apple, and its leaves have similar serrated edges. If thrown in, it floats on the surface, and puts forth new