COUNTRY LIFE
PEOPLE in Oxford are wondering why that delectable brook, the Cher, should be covered with duckweed, a plant not even noticed in ordinary. The stream in places looks like one of the green roads of England. Possibly the clearing of the river higher up has distributed the seedlings. It is a plant that multiplies itself at an astounding speed. For myself, I had a pond fed from the Lea, and at favourable junctures it would be thickly covered with duckweed. On one occasion a retriever tried to walk across it and emerged astonished in a green mantle. The distinction of the plant is that it has no leaves and no stems to speak of, but only fronds and roots, from which other fronds grow. The flowers are hardly noticeable, except when so numerous that they give a yellowish tint to certain patches. There are five sorts, of which the lesser is the commonest and most floriferous.
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