603 



These vestiges of decayed stems must not always be supposed the 

 production of the preceding year, unless found on the plant early in 

 the season, for this species begins to flower in June, and the individual 

 stems quickly spring up and perish, when they are succeeded by others 

 till August, or even now and then later. The perennial nature of O. 

 Hederaj, if once indisputably established, would be decisive in favour 

 of its distinctness from O. minor, which latter is unquestionably, I 

 think, of much more ephemeral duration.* 



Orobanche minor. Parasitic on a variety of plants belonging to 

 very different natural orders, but far most frequently at the roots of 

 clover {Tri folium pratense) in natural and artificial grass-fields. In- 

 comparably the most abundant species of the genus in this island and 

 county, infesting our clover-fields so universally and extensively as to 

 come under the head of an agricultural nuisance. It would, I think, 

 be difficult to find a field of clover in the Isle of Wight absolutely 

 without a specimen of O. minor upon it, and too often it makes its 

 appearance by hundreds, nay, thousands, on a clover piece of a few 

 acres in extent. Hence it is superfluous to give localities for a plant 

 which is equally plentiful in every part of the island in turn, whatever 

 the soil may be, whether chalk, sand or clay, but which at the same 

 time is permanent in no station, and abounds more in some years than 

 in others. Our farmers are not aware of the damage their clover sus- 

 tains from this plant, from ignorance of its parasitic attachment, and 

 because it never, I believe, destroys the crop like the clover dodder 

 (Cuscuta Trifolii, Bab.), but only weakens and stunts the plants with 

 which the tuberous base of the stem is in subterranean connexion. f 

 The evil not being of very glaring magnitude, and the cause unknown 

 and unsuspected, the Orobanche of the clover is allowed to spring up 

 unchecked, and to overrun a whole field, when its eradication by hand 

 might be accomplished with ease before it has had time to multiply 

 inordinately by seed. The broomrapes grow with almost mushroom 

 rapidity, and this one in particular shoots up in a quick succession of 

 individuals the summer through, till quite into autumn, and has as 

 much the look of an annual as the last has of being perennial in du- 

 ration. There can be little doubt that the seeds remain dormant in 



* The Orobanche alluded to by Curtis in ' Flora Londinensis,' as growing on 

 walls in Pembrokeshire, is most likely the O. Hederse. 



f I have never seen any of these singular parasites visibly connected with a large 

 and healthy specimen of the species of plant to which they severally attach themselves, 

 but have always found their victim a poor, stunted, flowerless thing, sometimes hardly 

 discernable above ground. 



