70 THE HUMAN SIDE OF PLANTS 



attack living plants in multitudinous numbers, like 

 wolves among sheep, or flocks of crows in a corn- 

 field, leaving nothing but death and devastation be- 

 hind. 



Of all the robber plants, perhaps the most inter- 

 esting, certainly the most beautiful, is the tree- 

 loving orchid, which belongs to a big family of 

 plants known as epiphytes. In the truest sense of 

 the word, they are not really robbers, because they 

 seldom obtain their food from the tree on which 

 they are found, but merely a "foothold" ; their food 

 comes from the air, through their own leaves. This 

 great family of epiphytes is also represented by 

 mosses and lichens and certain species of ferns ; but 

 its most striking member is the much-prized orchid. 

 Of all nature's subjects there is none so gorgeously 

 apparelled. 



In the great tropical forests of South America 

 the orchids cling in the tree-tops like small clouds 

 of floating silks that at giddy heights have caught 

 on to limbs of the tall trees. Their shapes and 

 colours are weirdly fantastical : they imitate beetles, 

 butterflies, moths, lizards, toads, scorpions, and 

 sometimes even human faces! In colour nothing 

 could be more extraordinary, nothing more fairy- 

 like. Some dress in dark golds and browns ; others 

 imitate the spotted reds and blacks of huge poison- 



