SECT. I. SOILS. 425 



formed of vegetating or decayed plants themselves, 

 to some of which the seeds of certain other plants 

 are found to adhere, as being the only soil fitted 

 to their germination and developement. The plants 

 springing from them are denominated Parasitical, as 

 being plants that will vegetate neither in the water 

 nor earth, but on certain other plants, to which they 

 attach themselves by means of roots that penetrate 

 the bark, and from the juices of which they do 

 often, though not always derive their support. This 

 last circumstance constitutes the ground of a sub- 

 division of parasitical plants, into such as merely 

 adhere to other plants but do not feed on them, 

 and such as do not merely adhere to other plants 

 but do also feed on them. 



In the first subdivision we may place parasitical Producing 

 Mosses, Lichens, and Fungi, which are found as plants, 

 often and in as great perfection on the stumps of 

 rotten trees, and on rotten pales and stakes, as on 

 trees that are yet vegetating ; whence it is also plain 

 that they do not derive their nourishment from the 

 plants on which they grow, but from the atmos- 

 phere by which they are surrounded ; the plant 

 to which they cling serving merely as a basis of 

 support. 



In the second subdivision we may place all such 

 plants as are strictly parasitical, that is, all such as 

 do actually abstract from the juices of the plant to 

 which they cling the nourishment necessary to the 

 developement of their parts ; and of which the 



