204 MISTLETOES AND LORANTHUSES. 
blood-red, whilst the verrucose lobes have almost the colour of the human skin. 
The flowers are sessile upon roots which wind about upon the dark forest ground, 
and a cadaverous smell, anything but pleasant, issues from them. All these 
peculiarities explain the uncanny impression made by the organisms in question 
upon their original discoverers and upon all subsequent observers. 
Whilst the Rafflesiz, as well as the genera Brugmansia and Sapria, belong 
to the tropical and sub-tropical regions of Asia, and to the world of islands adjacent 
thereto on the south side, the genus Apodanthes is confined to tropical America. 
Most of the species of Pilostyles also appertain to tropical America, especially to 
Brazil, Chili, Venezuela, and New Granada. One species alone—Pilostyles Ethio- 
pica—has been observed in the mountains of Angola, and another, as has been 
mentioned before, in Persia. 
The only European representative of the remarkable group of RafHesiacex is 
Cytinus Hypocistus, represented on the left side of fig. 42, but its distribution is 
coincident with the entire range of the Mediterranean flora. The roots of cistus 
shrubs, plants which are characteristic of the vegetation belonging to the basin of 
the Mediterranean, constitute the nutrient substratum in the case of Cytinus. It is 
especially where the layer of earth-mould is not deep, and consequently the roots of 
the shrubs in question are exposed, that Cytinus is met with growing in abundance 
amongst the under-wood of the cistus plants. The squamous leaves clothing the 
stem of this parasite being scarlet, and the plants not solitary but in large numbers, 
one sees here and there a flaming red colour glowing in the gaps in the cistus- 
groves, and one is thus from far off made aware of the presence of the parasite. 
The flowers themselves, which open between the red scale-like bracts, are yellow. 
The combination of colour thus afforded is a rare phenomenon in the vegetable 
world, and gives a very strange appearance to the plant. Besides the species of 
Cytinus distributed over the area of the Mediterranean flora, there are two other 
species in Mexico, and one also at the Cape, which, although not parasitic on Cistus 
shrubs but on other woody plants, especially Zriocephalus, yet do not differ from 
Cytinus Hypocistus in floral structure or in mode of connection with their host. 
MISTLETOES AND LORANTHUSES. 
The sixth and last series of parasitic phanerogams includes epiphytes of bushy 
appearance with much bifurcated branches, green cortex, green leaves, and berries 
containing large seeds, which germinate whilst resting immediately upon the 
branches of such trees as are adapted to act as host-plants, and will surrender to the 
invader a portion of their nutriment. To this series belong a dozen different species 
of the genus Henslowia, belonging to the family of Santalaces, and indigenous 
to the South of Asia—chiefly the East Indian Archipelago—and, in addition, 
upwards of 300 species included in the family Loranthacee. Amongst the 
latter, the plant that is best known and most widely distributed is the Euro- 
pean Mistletoe (Visewm albwm) represented in fig. 46, and as it is also fitted, in 
