938 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the country to Texas, and westward to the Pacific coast. 

 Usually it is found growing in damp or even wet woods, 

 beneath the rank vegetation that most often is high 

 above it. It is not very abundant in the neighborhood of 

 Washington, the specimen shown in Figure 3 being the 

 first one discovered for some years ; it was found near 

 the bank of a tiny stream that coursed through a swampy 

 piece of woods, not far from a ford leading into Rock 

 Creek Park. As will be noted in the illustration, this 

 beautiful and delicate little flower tops a slender and 

 (|uite naked stem. Each blossom is tubular and five-lobed, 



Fig 5— IN THIS CUT WE HAVE ANOTHER CURIOUS PLANT OF 

 THE HEATH FAMILY, WHICH LIKEWISE HAS BEEN CALLED 

 "PINESAP," THOUGH IT IS MORE GENERALLY KNOWN BY THE 

 NAME OF FALSE BEECH DROPS {Monotropa hypopitys) 



False Bt-ech Drops, as a plant, belongs in the same genus with the 

 Indian Pipe, nothwithstandmg the fact that the summit of its stem is 

 not invariably "turned to one side." 



the color being sometimes white, but most often pale 

 violet or even purple. It possesses a faint, sweet frag- 

 rance, and to some extent this may attract the small 

 bees that are responsible for its cross-fertilization. 



This Naked Broom-rape, as it is sometimes called, is a 

 leafless, parasitic plant that thrives upon the sap of other 

 plants ; that is to say, it is by nature parasitic — hence 

 its lack of leaves. It rarely grows over six inches in 

 height, and quite often several of them are found loosely 

 bunched in a group. In Figure 3 the plants are seen to 

 be growing near a rock, among blades of some swamp- 

 grass ; others near them grew at the foot of a beech tree. 



Passing next to the Heath family, which is widely 

 separated from the Broom-rapes, we find a remarkable 

 as well as famous plant in the Indian Pipe, also known 

 as Pine-sap and Ghost-plant. The group shown in Fig- 



ure 4 was taken natural size, as in the case of all the 

 other plants in this article, just as they grew in a forest 

 of big pines and oaks. This genus has been named 

 Monotropa for the reason that its flower-head turns to 

 one side, and it only becomes erect when it goes to seed. 

 Gray describes it briefly in the following words : "Low 

 and fleshy herbs, tawny, reddish, or white ; parasitic on 

 roots, or growing upon decomposing vegetable matter ; 

 the clustered stems spring from a ball of matted, fibrous 

 rootlets ; furnished with scales or bracts in place of 

 leaves; one to several flowered." The origin of the 

 name is from the Greek. He claims that Indian l'i])e is 

 found in Mexico as well as in Asia. When picked, it 

 ■^oon shrivels up and turns a sooty black ; while, if carried 

 home with care, with plenty of moist, rich earth about its 

 roots and planted in a proper environment, it will thrive 



F.R, 6-TIIE GROUP OF FALSE BEECH DROPS HERE SHOWN IN 

 FIGURE 5 WERE PHOTOGRAPHED IN SITU. IN THIS CUT WK 

 HAVE ANOTHER SPECIMEN WITH THE SURROUNDINGS CLEARED 

 AWAY, IN THAT THE PLANT MAY BE MORE SATISFACTORILY 

 STUDIED 



The remarkable caterpillar shown on the suspended leaf is the larva of 

 the Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly (FapHio phiUnor), a beautiful form 

 of that famous genus. 



and eventually go to seed — its life-cycle offering, upon 

 the whole, a most interesting and instructive chapter in 

 the study of one of the most curious growths we have in 

 our entire flora. 



Mathews says of the Indian Pipe that when it goes 

 to seed "the enlarged ovary finally assumes an erect 



