34 FIEST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 



to find a great likeness to the one we have left, in 

 that which conies immediately above it. Thus it 

 happens that the lowest of the flowering plants 

 look almost like flowering lichens, or mushrooms." 



" Have we ever seen them ? " asked Mary. 



"You have not, and perhaps you never may in 

 their own climate; for they are, I believe, wholly 

 confined to tropical countries. They are parasites 

 upon roots or trunks' of trees, and have no true 

 leaves, and very little stem : yet they have flowers 

 growing immediately from the branch of the tree, 

 and surrounded by scales, which take the place of 

 leaves." 



" They must look as if they were the blossoms 

 of the tree itself," remarked Henry. 



u They cannot be so mistaken/' replied his 

 father, "because in these parasites the whole plant 

 is of a uniform dull colour, either brown, yellow, 

 or purple. The scales that represent leaves, and 

 the fungous-like mass that sometimes forms a sort 

 of stem, is never green as in other plants. A giant 

 parasite of this race,* when in bud, is of the size 

 of an ordinary cabbage, and when in blossom 

 measures a yard across/' 



* Eafflesia. 



