344 Cuscuta Epilinum a British Plant. 



is wrong, because the bractea is only wanting to the indivi- 

 dual flowers. Indeed the general bractea is not easily seen, 

 being partly concealed and enveloped by the globular sessile 

 head. The calyx is large and spreading, its segments thick 

 and deltoid, almost as long as the corolla, which has very a- 

 cute segments and a globose tube, even before the enlarge- 

 ment of the germen. The filaments are also very short and 

 very acute ; beneath each of which, at the base of the corol- 

 la, is inserted a broad membranous scale, (perceived with dif- 

 ficuly from being in close contact with the tube), whose jag- 

 ged tips do not reach so high as the insertion of the stamens. 

 The capsule is globose, 2-celled, the cells 2-seeded, and the 

 seeds sub -triquetrous from compression as they swell, cover- 

 ed with chaffy granulations and deeply pitted. 



In common with its congeners, the stems of C. Epilinum 

 twist upwards from west to east, often binding together ma- 

 ny contiguous plants of flax, and* strangling them as it were 

 with a tight cord. Its roots and the lower part of the stem 

 also wither away, as soon as it has firmly fixed itself upon 

 the stock by means of its wart-like suckers, through which 

 it supports itself on the juices of its foster-parent. Strictly 

 speaking, no station can be given for this parasite, as it can 

 only come to perfection where flax is cultivated. Though 

 ripe seeds which have been shed upon the ground may ger- 

 minate the ensuing spring, the young plants soon die if the 

 flax be not at hand on which to fix themselves. According- 

 ly I could not find a single specimen in the same field, the 

 ensuing summer, 1837, the crop having been changed. This 

 may account for a circumstance which occurred many years 

 ago, and which puzzled me at the time, and also confirms 

 Sir W. Hooker's opinion, that it will only grow on flax. I 

 had sown some purchased flax seed in a back border in my 

 garden, the plants from which were infested with C. Euro- 

 p<ea, (as I believed). I sowed some of the dodder seeds a- 

 mong nettles, in the corner of a field, and was disappointed 

 at their not producing a single plant ; though I now think it 

 probable that they germinated, and died away for want of their 

 proper food. If botanists would search in fields of growing 

 flax, or among purchased seed in spring, they would proba- 

 bly be rewarded by finding either living plants or seeds of 

 this troublesome parasite, which I suspect is not uncommon; 

 and it would well repay the farmer to rid his flax seed of this 

 worst species of Tares, before sowing it. The seeds are large, 

 nearly round, and would easily be detected among the flax. 



If any botanist, being fully satisfied that he has found the 

 true plant, would kindly forward good growing specimens to 



