262 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
species is bladdery, and four of its five lobes are 
- erisped and leafy. It may be as well in leaving this 
genus to observe that the name Lousewort is due to 
the belief of our forefathers that sheep feeding where 
this plant grew were abnormally liable to annoyance 
by parasitical insects. 
We have already alluded to the fact that these 
latterly-mentioned genera are partial parasites, attack- 
ing the roots of various plants and stealing some of 
their nutriment; but they are not so far gone in 
rascality as toimpose their entire support upon their 
victim, as a real parasite does. Their retention of 
normal green leaves is a certificate to the fact that 
though they steal the crude sap, they elaborate it in 
their own leaves, and so do not impose so grievous a 
burden as parasitism implies. But there is an allied 
eroup of plants, the Toothworts (Lathrwa) and 
Broomrapes (Orobanche), which have turned their 
backs upon honest industry altogether. Perhaps 
they commenced lke Eyebright and Bartsia and 
Yellow Rattle by merely tapping roots—they are still 
attached to the roots of their victims, but instead of 
being content with the almost raw material of which 
plants are made, they steal the fully elaborated 
essence, which needs merely moulding into tissues 
and organs. The difference between the two degrees 
of vegetable thieves is an exact parallel to “Peter 
Pindar’s” story of the rival broomsellers. One was 
enabled to undersell the trade by stealing the stuff of 
which he made his brooms, but was disgusted to find 
one day he had been undersold in turn. Chancing to 
meet his rival, he inquired how it was done, acknow- 
ledging that he sometimes stole his raw material. 
