ROBBER Y AND MURDER. 247 



possessed by the acorn and bean, but they are well 

 provided for instead with a store of albumen {endo- 

 sperm), on which the minute embryo subsists until it 

 is fortunate enough to meet with its prey. As soon 

 as the latter is found, the wire-like stem takes one or 

 two coils around the victim, and develops a series 

 of sucker -like aerial roots which penetrate into its 

 tissues to the upflowing sap. Having its expendi- 

 ture thus abundantly supplied at no cost to itself, 

 the Dodder grows apace ; its red wire-like stems 

 crawl snakewise in and out of the most complicated 

 of host-plants ; even the Gorse, in spite of its stiff, 

 prickly leaves, being frequently investured within and 

 without by the triumphant Dodder. The latter is a 

 true Liane, on a diminutive scale, but possessing what 

 none of its tropical representatives have managed to 

 evolve — an elaborate blood -sucking machinery, so 

 that its victim has to support it both mechanically 

 and vitally ! 



As soon as the young Dodder plant finds it has 

 got a good hold of the proper prey, and has inter- 

 cepted the sap supplies after the manner just 

 described, it lets go its hold upon the soil where it 

 germinated, but not before. No fewer than four 

 genera of Dodder parasites have been enum.erated 

 by botanists, including fifty species, all of which 

 obtain their livelihood after the same nefarious 

 fashion. So long and so successfully have the 

 Dodders practised thievery that most if not all the 



