PINE-DROPS (Pterdspora Andromedea, Nutt.). Flowers 

 white or yellowish, urn-shaped, drooping in a long, many- 

 flowered raceme terminating the brownish-red, clammy, sticky 

 stem which (including the flowers) is from 1 to 4 feet tall. 

 Leaves reduced to scattered scales. 



The fleshy, slender stems of the Pine-drops, straight as ar- 

 rows, are an arresting sight in the oak and coniferous woods of 

 the Pacific Coast, whether in summer when strung with their 

 waxen bells of bloom, or in winter when the fruit capsules 

 have taken then- place. Its roots consist of clustered, coral- 

 like fibres which attach themselves parasitically to other living 

 plants. The lover of sights that have to be magnified will 

 find interest in the tiny seeds, each of which bears a thin, 

 translucent, veined wing many times larger than the seed it- 

 self. It was this characteristic which suggested the botanical 

 name, meaning "winged-seeded." 



Pine-drops is found not only on the Pacific Coast, but 

 in the Rocky Mountain region south to Arizona, and eastward 

 to New England. Some botanists place it and its parasitic 

 kindred in a family to themselves which they call Mono- 

 tropacece. 



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