172 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



which constantly surrounds them, and from which alone 

 they are supplied with food by those same roots, that thus 

 serve the double purpose of claspers and feeders. Even 

 law-defying squatters are found among the plants, as 

 the mistletoe of sacred memory. It fastens upon some 

 strong, healthy tree, and having no power of forming true 

 roots for itself, it sends out branches which creep through 

 crevices in the bark, into the wood, so that the roots of 

 the parent stem must supply it with food, and the para- 

 sitical plant lives, in truth, upon the very life's blood of 

 the tree on which it has fastened itself. Even the stately 

 palm is frequently seen in the murderous embrace of a 

 plant, which is emphatically called the parricide tree. It 

 commences, like every thing vicious, with a small and rather 

 pleasing growth on the trunk or among the branches, then 

 rapidly extends its graceful tendrils in every direction, and 

 increases in bulk and strength, until at last it winds its 

 serpent folds in deadly embrace around the parent tree. 

 The conflict lasts sometimes for years, but the parricide 

 is sure to be victorious in the end, and to strangle the 

 noble palm in its beautiful but deadly coils. The pros- 

 perity of the parasite thus becomes an almost infallible 

 sign of the decay of its victim, and a most affecting image 

 of life crushed by a subtle, brute force. And yet it has 

 its redeeming feature in the remarkable fact that these 

 parasites never attack firs or evergreens, but only cover 

 with their foliage those which winter deprives of their 

 glory. The ivy, which often wraps the largest giants of 

 the forest in its dark green mantle, thus appeared to older 

 nations as the symbol of generous friendship, attaching 



