184 PLANT LIFE 
intimate connection with the wood of the 
tree which is necessary both to fix the parasite 
to its support and to draw from the host 
plant the supplies of water it requires for its 
own purposes. . 
There are other near relatives of the 
mistletoe, belonging to the genus Loranthus, 
which are far more dangerous and destructive 
parasites. These plants are common in the 
tropics, and they form leafy, bush-like growths 
in the trees they infest. Many of them bear 
beautiful trusses of red flowers, and they some- 
what recall the appearance of fuchsia bushes 
perched among the trunks and boughs on the 
outskirts of the forest. 
Like the mistletoe, it is the roots of a loran- 
thus that have undergone important changes 
in relation to the parasitic habit. They arise 
as sucker-like outgrowths from special creep- 
ing stems of the loranthus which grow along 
the surface of the tree. As the sucker-bearing 
branches are freely produced, and may reach 
a considerable length, the parasite often does 
very serious damage. 
It is not a little curious that in a large 
family of plants like the Loranthacez, to which 
both Loranthus and the mistletoe belong, some 
species should not have advanced still farther 
in the parasitic direction. But although 
nearly all of them draw their water supplies 
from another plant, they have never taken 
the final step of absorbing from it the organic 
food. They have consequently, or perhaps 
