THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 165 



seeds by rubbing them on the branches of trees, to 

 which they adhere. Myriads of these seeds ger- 

 minate in every direction, on leaves and even 

 rotten wood, but if they do not happen to find a 

 congenial spot on some living branch or twig, they 

 perish very quickly. Instead of a radicle the germ 

 produces a sucking disk, which immediately adheres 

 to its living support and begins draining the sap to 

 support, first its cotyledons, and then its long whip- 

 like stems. As the parasite gets strong, its long 

 extensions spread from branch to branch, and from 

 twig to twig, everywhere extending octopus-like 

 arms provided with sucking disks, which adhere 

 to and bleed the tree in a hundred different places. 

 Branch after branch is dried up, but as the loranth 

 has many strings to his bow, this does not hurt 

 him much. There are always more to conquer, 

 and unless the tree stands alone, which is of course 

 impossible in the forest, he rarely comes to grief. 

 It is not to his advantage that the tree should die 

 quickly, and therefore the longer it can support 

 him the better. However, even the most sturdy 

 giant of the forest suffers greatly from such con- 

 tinual depletion, and may be so weakened as to lag 

 behind in the race for life, with the ultimate result 

 that it is smothered by its fellows. 



Surrounded by so many rivals of its own classi 



