100 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



A saprophyte is a plant which lives on dead or decaying 



matter. Mushrooms, yeast 

 plants, the mould on bread 

 and cheese, and some 

 bacteria are examples. Sa- 

 prophytes are very useful 

 members of plant society. 

 Mushrooms change decaying 

 vegetable matter into whole- 

 some food. When insects or 



Fig. 84. — A piece of a branch 

 of an apple tree cut through 

 lengthwise, into which a 

 young mistletoe-plant has 

 driven its sucking roots (re- 

 duced). (From Thom^ and 

 Bennett's " Structural and 

 Physiological Botany ". ) 



Fig. 85. — Sarcophyfe sanguinea (order Balanophoraceae), a parasite grow- 

 ing on the roots of Ekebergia and Acacia in the Eastern Province. I. Pistil- 

 late. II. Staminate flower. 



animals die, or leaves fall, there would be a great accumula- 

 tion of useless matter were it not for the saprophytes, which 

 seize upon this decaying matter and make it ready to be used 



