eee AE EQ ei UNA Elo. Ca 
1900] Jack, — Arceuthobium pusillum in Massachusetts 7 
anthers of the staminate plants causing them to be much more con- 
spicuous than the pistillate plants, which are not so likely to be noticed 
in flower unless sought. The date of flowering is interesting because 
in botanical publications it is usually given as June. When the plants 
under consideration were again examined on May a the staminate 
flowers had nearly all faded away. They are brownish and composed 
of a usually three- or four-parted calyx, upon each segment of which a 
sessile anther is borne, which is the most conspicuous part of the blos- 
som when the yellow pollen is exposed. 
This mistletoe is dioecious and the staminate and pistillate flowers 
are usually found on separate spruces or host plants, but sometimes on 
different branches of the same tree. 
At maturity this little parasite rarely approaches an inch in length ; 
most commonly it is less than half an inch long, the pistillate or fruiting 
plants apparently averaging longer than the staminate. The stems are 
greenish or greenish brown, slender, cylindric, usually less than a six- 
teenth of an inch in diameter, generally simple, sometimes with short 
opposite branches. 
The stems are practically biennial, attaining full growth during one 
season, flowering and fruiting the next, after which they fall away and 
only the stem scars remain on the bark of the host. The staminate 
plants fall away in spring or early summer, soon after flowering, the 
pistillate not until after maturing of fruit in the autumn. 
The mistletoe spreads with the growth of the twigs by means of 
haustoria or suckers beneath the bark of the host, and, in the autumn, 
small dark buds may be seen protruding through the bark of that por- 
tion of the twig which grew the preceding year, these developing into 
full sized plants the following year, having well developed flower buds 
which open the succeeding spring; so that the living plants of the 
parasite, in some stage, are to be seen in three growing seasons before 
they finally drop off. ` 
In the autumn the fruiting mistletoe is found on the fourth year of 
growth back from the tip, while the plants for the next year occupy the 
next later growth or that of the third year preceding. 
In this latitude the fruit ripens in the latter part of September. It 
is then of a translucent dull purplish color. 
When ripe, the seeds are violently expelled from the berries at the 
moment that the latter become separated from their stalks, and a mu- 
cilaginous matter attached to the seeds causes them to stick to other 
