ROBBERY AND MURDER. 243 



in various stages of forwardness, may be seen on 

 this Sour-sop, springing up from the surfaces of the 

 leaves, three or four on one leaf, and that on both 

 the inferior and superior faces. This I take to 

 be a somewhat unusual phenomenon." From this 

 description it would appear as if the Jamaican 

 Mistletoe had advanced further in parasitism, or 

 vegetable robbery, than our well-known English 

 species. 



Again, Sir Charles Bunbury [Botanical Fragments) 

 alludes to a Cape species in a manner which shows 

 that it does not differ very much either in structure 

 or habits from our indigenous kinds. " When I 

 visited Uitenhage, on my way back to Cape Town, 

 in the month of June, a beautiful LorantJms {L. 

 glaitciis) was in blossom on the branches of the 

 Acacia, on which it grows parasitically, exactly as 

 our Mistletoe does on European trees. Its flowers 

 are somewhat like those of the Honeysuckle in 

 shape, and of a most vivid orange-scarlet colour. 

 LorantJms is a very large genus of parasitical 

 shrubs, almost entirely tropical or sub-tropical ; but 

 with one solitary species {Loranthtis Ettropceiis) grow- 

 ing on Oaks in the south of Europe, and believed 

 by some to have been the original object of Druidical 

 homage — the original ' Mistletoe of the Oak.' Vis- 

 cuniy to which our Mistletoe belongs, is a genus of 

 comparatively few species, but with a much wider 

 range than LorantJms^ occurring in most countries 



