71 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



the styles protruding. There is a variety of this which confines its attention to the 

 clover plant, and has, in consequence, been raised to the dignity of a separate 

 species by some authors (C. trifolii). In addition there is the Flax-dodder (C. 

 epilinuni), previously alluded to as having been introduced from the Continent with 

 flax-seed. 



Owing to the serious nature of the attacks of this foreign invader upon our flax- 

 crops Professor Buckman was induced years ago to experiment, with the object of 

 elucidating its mode of growth. He found that seeds of Dodder sown strictly 

 apart from any host-plants germinated in four days, and on the sixth a thread-like 

 plant was seeking a foster-parent, but by the eighth, not having succeeded in its 

 object, it died. Others were sown in company with flax-seed, and in a few days the 

 young dodders attached themselves to the young flax-plants, made one or two tight 

 coils round the victims, whose growth soon lifted the dodders right out of the soil, 

 and thereupon the parasites sent aerial roots into the flax, and their natural roots 

 dwindled and perished. Thereafter its true parasitical growth is most rapid, to the 

 detriment of the foster plant. 



The genus is included in the Natural Order Convolvulaceae. 



Corn Cockle (Githago segetum). Plate 72. 



Wandering through or round the cornfields any time from 

 June to September we are almost sure to find this beautiful 

 flower. It is first cousin to the Lychnis, already described, and 

 in general structure agrees with it, only differing from it in 

 having a leathery calyx, and in the absence of the crown of little 

 scales which surround the mouth of the corolla-tube in Lychnis. 

 They produce honey, but owing to the length of the tube it is 

 only accessible to the long tongues of butterflies and moths, 

 who are instrumental in effecting its cross-fertilization. The 

 plant is an annual, with erect branching stem, clothed with white 

 hairs. The leaves are long and narrow, four or five inches long. 

 The woolly calyx is in one, strongly ribbed, with five very long 

 leaf-like teeth, that considerably exceed the petals in length. 

 The flowers are purple, and measure nearly two inches across. 



This is the only native species ; indeed, some writers 

 consider it to be only an introduced plant a form of Agros- 

 temma gradlis that has been altered by its continuous growth 

 in our cultivated fields. 



