CUSCUTA GRONOVII. 

 COMMON AMERICAN DODDER. 



NATURAL ORDER, CONVOLVULACE.-E, 



CuscuTA Gronovii, Willdenow. — Stems coarse, climbing high; flowers mostly five-cleft, in 

 close or mostly open paniculate cymes; corolla bell-shaped, the tube longer than (or 

 sometimes only as long as) the ovate obtuse entire spreading lobes; scales large, converg- 

 ing, copiously fringed, confluent at the base; pod globose, umbonate, brown. (Gray's 

 Manunl of the Botany of the Northern United States, Chapman's Flora of the Southern 

 United States, and Wood's Class- Book of Botany.) 



T is Interesting to note how differently the same object 

 will Impress different people. In this case we have the 

 common Dodder, known to the people of the Southern States 

 as " Love-Vine," as we learn from Darby and other Southern 

 writers. It is difficult to Imagine why a plant which winds Itself 

 around another, sucking the life from that which It clings to, 

 should be suggestive of love, unless It be of that species which 

 was in the mind of Byron when he thus apostrophized : 



" Oh love ! what is it in this world of ours 



That makes it so fatal to be loved ? Oh why 

 With Cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers 

 And made thy best interpreter a sigh ! " 



The true affection which 



"Where it toucheth clingeth tightly, 

 Round glossy leaf or stump unsightly, 

 And from its spirit wandereth out 

 Tendrils spreading all about, 

 Knitting all things to its thrall 

 With a perfect love to all," 



if we may make this application from Lowell's " Thrcnodia," is 



HI) 



