334 Monography of the North American Cuscutinee. 
albumen. Monotropee and Orobanchee have extremely minute 
seeds, in some respects similar to the spores of Acotyledonous 
plants. The seeds of Cuscutinee germinate in the ground ; but 
soon finding the plants round which they twine, (turning con- 
stantly to the left like all Convolvulacee,) they strike their pa- 
pillose roots into the epidermis of the stem, from which they 
subsequently derive their nourishment ; their own original stems 
soon withering away, so that the glass is no longer in direct 
communication with the earth. 
As in the Eintozoa, the same species is only the same or some 
nearly related animal, so in the E'piphyta, each species is for the 
most part restricted to the same or similar plants. This is more 
constantly the case in Orobanchee, where the germinating em- 
bryo fixes itself at once upon its favorite plant; but in Cuscuta, 
where the seed germinates in the ground, and the stem after- 
wards lays hold of the plant which affords its nourishment, it 
frequently twines around all the plants in the neighborhood, and 
is capable of extracting from them its food. Some species, how- 
ever, are more constant in their predilections than others ; as, for 
example, the European Cuscuta E’pilinum, which never grows 
on any other plant than flax; and our Lepidanche Composita- 
rum, which is confined to Siditasro, Helianthus, and some other 
Composite. Yet several, like the European Cuscuta Epithy- 
mum and the American C. Polygonorum, live promiscuously 00 
most plants within their reach, evidently preferring, however, — 
some particular species or genus, and seldom found except in its 
immediate vicinity. I have therefore ventured, as far as practi- 
cable, to name the species of Cuscuta after the plant upon which 
they grow; in accordance with the nomenclature frequently 
adopted of late in the case of parasites, especially in the genus 
Orobanche, (Examp. Orobanche Galii, O. Eryngii, O O. Scabio- 
s@, O. Salvia, etc.): thereby designating an important circum 
stance in the history of the plant. 
_ Before I proceed to describe the North American species knows 
be me, it may be well to present a general 
- Seoed of the species that have come under my observation. 
gre: = united into a 4-5-cleft calyx. 
C. wonoeras, Vahl — Europe. 
