66 GlJMPSliS IXTO PLAXT-IJFE 



that the latter is both exhausted and choked by its 

 snake-Hke enemy. 



I once sowed a patch of flax in a garden, and not 

 knowing that it too had a parasitic enem)', I was 

 greatly puzzled to find quantities of pinkish threads 

 growing out of the flax stems. These threads bore 

 round bunches of tin\- flowers. All this was very 

 pretty and interesting, but it resulted in m)' patch 

 of flax becoming a mass of interlacing threads and 

 dying a miserable death, fairly strangled by the 

 flax dodder. Another species of Ciiscuta epilinuin, 

 grows on furze and also on heather, it having the 

 twine-like stems b}- which dodder ma}' readily be 

 known. 



We are all familiar with the mistletoe, its leathery 

 leaves and its white berries. 



This plant grows out of the branches of poplar, 

 hawthorn, and apple, and very occasionally upon 

 the oak. 



In France and Belgium the custom of bordering 

 the fields with single rows of Lombardy poplars 

 .seems to fa\our the growth of mistletoe, for its large 

 green bunches form quite a feature in the landscape, 

 and cannot fail to be observed b}' the traveller as he 



