176 White to Green and Brown Flowers 



erosely dentate. Fruit: capsule globose, seeds minute, scobiliform, the 

 loose coat produced at both ends. 



There is only one known species of this curious parasitic 

 plant, which is deep cream-coloured with red stripes. The 

 numerous tiny flowers grow in a wand-shaped spike, and 

 the ovate, scaly bracts are closely set at the base of the thick 

 stems, becoming fewer above, and gradually passing into 

 the narrow bracts of the many-flowered spike. The little 

 pedicels are erect or spreading, and two-bracted, while the 

 several stems grow from six to twelve inches high from a 

 deep-seated, perennial rootstock. 



INDIAN PIPE 



Monotropa unifiora. Heath Family 



Stems: smooth, fleshy, scaly. Leaves: none. Flowers: oblong, bell- 

 shaped, nodding, two to four sepals, four to five scale-like petals. 

 Fruit: capsule erect, many seeded. 



This waxy, cold and clammy plant is white throughout 

 stalks, scales, and flowers only the eight or ten yellowish 

 stamens giving a faint touch of colour to its ghost-like ap- 

 pearance. Very rarely the Indian Pipe is rose-colour, and 

 always it turns blackish when dying. Of all ghoulish para- 

 sites the Monotropas are among the worst, their matted, 

 brittle, fibrous roots preying on the juices of other plants, or 

 on dead and decaying matter. The single, bell-shaped 

 flower hangs its head at the top of each scaly stalk, but when 

 the numerous seeds begin to form it raises its head erect. 



Monotropa Hypopitys, or Pinesap, has white, tawny or 

 rose-coloured flowers that are very fragrant, and oblong- 

 bell-shaped, borne in a one-sided, terminal, drooping raceme, 

 and, like the Indian Pipe, becoming erect at maturity. The 

 scaly-bracted scapes rise in clusters from a mass of fleshy, 



