28 Orobanche Virginiana. 
quence of the Orobanche having been originally discovered in that 
country, to be parasitic on the broom. 
The present species is singular in its habit and structure, and in- 
teresting, because of the agency there is good reason to suppose it 
had in the formation of a celebrated cancer-powder. The whole 
plant is somewhat fleshy; it is herbaceous and wholly without ver- 
dure, or even any approximation to that common hue of the vegeta- 
ble creation. It is frequently altogether of a sickly yellow colour, 
but most commonly is of a pale pink, with longitudinal stripes of 
dark purple, white and yellow. These stripes are on the ridges of 
the stems and branches, all which are finely furrowed. The root is 
tuberous, yellow, carnose, covered with short convoluted and mat- 
ted fibres on its lower end, and interspersed with squamose projec- 
tions towards its junction with the stalk. The stem is glabrous, 
erect, about twelve or fifteen inches high, much branched from the 
base, and garnished with scattered, short ovate scales instead of 
leaves, of which it is entirely destitute. The flowers are numerous, 
remote, alternate, and situated just above the cauline scales. The 
calix is a short membranaceous cup, with five vertical acute ribs 
projecting above, and joined together by their crenate margin. The 
acute points of those projections are deep purple, inclining to crow- 
black. The corolla of the fertile or fruiting flowers, is small, being 
in reality, little else than a four-toothed scale, crowning the large 
and rapidly enlarging germ, after the manner of the calyptra of 
