Masterpieces of Science 



In a field of growing flax we can find — some- 

 what oftener than the farmer likes — a curious 

 tribe of plants, the dodders. Their stems are 

 thin and wiry, and their small white flowers, 

 globular in shape, make the azure blossoms of the 

 flax all the lovelier by contrast. As their cousins 

 the morning glories are to this day, the dodders 

 in their first estate were true climbers. Even 

 now they begin life in an honest kind of way 

 with roots of their own that go forth as roots 

 should, seeking food where it is to be found in the 

 soil. But if we pull up one of these little club- 

 shaped roots we shall see that it has gone to 

 work feebly and doubtfully; it seems to have a 

 skulking expectation of dinner without having 

 to dig and delve for it in the rough dirty ground. 

 Nor is this expectation unfounded. Watch the 

 stem of a sister dodder as it rises from the earth 

 day by day, and it will be observed to clasp a 

 stalk of flax very tightly; so tightly that its 

 suckers will absorb the juices of its unhappy host. 

 When, so very easily, it can regale itself with food 

 ready to hand why should it take the trouble to 

 drudge for a living? 



Like many another pauper demoralized by 

 being fed in idleness, the plant now abandons 

 honest toil, its roots from lack of exercise wither 

 away, and for good and all it ceases to claim any 

 independence whatever. Indeed, so deep is the 

 dodder's degradation that if it cannot find a stem 

 of flax, or hop, or other plant whereon to climb 

 and thrive, it will simply shrivel and die rather 

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