423 CAUSES LIMITING PROPAGATION. CHAP. X, 



and suspending them from the ceiling of their 

 apartments, about the season of Christmas when 

 the fijuit is ripe. 



Dodder. Cuscuta europcza, or Dodder, though it is to be 

 accounted a truly parasitical plant in the issue, is 

 not yet originally so. For the seed of this plant 

 when it has fallen to the ground takes root ori- 

 ginally by sending down its radicle into the soil and 

 elevating its stem into the air. It is not yet, there- 

 fore, a parasitical plant. But the stem which is 

 now elevated above the surface lays hold of the first 

 plant it meets with, though it is particularly partial 

 to Hops and Nettles, and twines itself around it, 

 attaching itself by means of little parasitical roots 

 at the points of contact, and finally detaching itself 

 from the soil altogether by the decay of the ori- 

 ginal root, and becoming a truly parasitical plant. 

 Withering describes the plant in his arrangements 

 as being originally parasitical ; but this is certainly 

 not the fact. 



The Orobanchc, or Broom-rape, which attaches 

 itself by the root to the roots of other plants, is also 

 to be regarded as being truly parasitical, though it 

 sometimes sends out fibres which seem to draw 

 nourishment from the earth. It is found most fre- 

 quently on the roots of common Broom ; but I 

 have found it also on the roots of Scabiosa arvensis; 

 and even upon the root of Samolus Valerandi. 

 This last case I met with in the garden of the Rev. 

 Dr. Dawson, of Burgh, in Suffolk, in the month 

 8 



