404 Mr. Bowman on the Parasitical Connection 
been very imperfectly understood. Its subterranean stem throws 
out from between the scales many succulent and tender fibres, 
bearing a profusion of minute tubercles or bulbs, which fix 
themselves upon the roots of the Ash, Hazel, &c. and extract 
their juices in the manner shown in Fig. 3. These tubercles are 
principally formed near the extremities of the fibres; they are 
either solitary or in groups of two or three, and bear some 
external resemblance to small beads, or the knotty excrescences 
on the roots of some leguminous plants. ‘The connecting fibres 
are so tender, that it is difficult to get them up without breaking 
off the tubers, which are left behind upon the root of the stock. 
` The tubers are brown, semiglobular, and succulent, and usually 
not larger than a small pin head ; so that, even should a few 
remain on the fibres after being dug up, they might escape 
observation among the soil that adheres to them. Hence I 
attribute their having so long escaped the notice of botanists. 
Neither these tubers nor their fibres are to be found in the very 
spirited woodcuts of Matthiolus, Parkinson, or Gerarde*. Sir 
. J. E. Smith (English Flora, vol. 3. p. 128.) alludes to the fibrous 
character of the root; but though he says he believes it to be 
parasitical, he does not explain in what way. On first washing 
the Ash roots, I was astonished to find some of them thickly 
studded with the tubercles adhering closely to the bark on all 
sides, and to the fibrous roots of the parasite, in the manner I 
have represented in Fig. 3. To remove all doubt on this head, 
I traced these fibres from the tubers to their insertion in the stem 
between the imbricated scales of the Lathrea, and, by the aid of 
the microscope, through its cellular bark to their junction with 
the ligneous part which ranges round the medulla. It was ne- 
* The figure in Matthiolus is the largest and best of the three; but the flowers in all 
are too small, and too thinly scattered on the stem. The cut in Gerarde (edit. 1597) 
is a copy from Matthiolus, but reversed and on a smaller scale. 
cessary 
