238 



SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



of its own, even better entitled to the name of 

 " parasites." By this term I mean animals and 

 plants which live wholly or in part upon the living 

 tissues of other species. In all these instances the 

 parasite either lives within the tissues of the plant it 

 has attacked, or is engrafted upon them, and fuses 

 its own with them. 



Our Mistletoe {Visciim album) suggests itself as 



Fig. 82. — Common Mistletoe Visc^an albmii) ; a. Flower ; d. Fruit. 



one of the most striking of vegetable parasites. 

 But it is by no means the worst, for it lays the 

 tree on which it grows under only partial tribute, 

 whereas the Dodder and the Broom - rapes 

 iProbanchacecB) live wholly and entirely upon 

 the food -stuffs and sap stored up and secreted 

 by the plants we find them growing upon. What 

 renders it more disgraceful, on the part of the 

 latter, is the fact that the plants the Broom -rapes 



