JANUARY. 43 



flowering plants known in Britain. The Boleti, 

 Polypori, and various other fungi, are doubtless really 

 parasitical, not only living upon, but often destroying 

 the miserable victims exposed to their invasion. 



The mistletoe (viscum album, Linn), is a dioecious 

 plant, of which the females seem to be by far the 

 most numerous, producing from their tetrandrous 

 corolla and inferior ovary, a white globular viscid 

 berry of one cell, containing one seed. The embryo 

 is dicotyledonous, but the coriaceous leaves with 

 parallel veins, have certainly a very peculiar aspect, 

 and both sides have the same uniform yellowish green 

 colour, which distinguishes the smooth, jointed, round 

 stem. When the embryo germinates, it generally 

 produces two or more radicles, whose shape has been 

 compared to that of a French horn, which curiously 

 enough do not progress downwards, as is common to 

 the generality of plants, but, contrary to the law of 

 gravitation, often push directly upwards, as is the 

 case when one of the glutinous seeds is deposited on 

 the under side of a branch ; and in other cases the 

 direction of the radicle is always perpendicular to 

 the axis of the branch. The provision of nature for 

 the increase and continuation of her offspring, is 

 shown as much in the mistletoe as in any other plant. 

 Although its nature is dioecious, and consequently 

 a plant standing alone might not produce any fruit, 

 it is found that a single seed often nourishes two 

 embryoes, a brother and sister ; and the gluten which 

 envelopes the seed furnishes nutriment to the young 

 plants till they have penetrated with their sucker-like 

 radicles, which are devoid of fibrils, into the sap-wood 

 of the tree. As the mistletoe derives no nutriment 



