CHAPTER XIII 



DEPENDENT PLANTS 



177. DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT PLANTS.— Plants 

 with roots and foliage usually depend on themselves. They 

 collect the raw materials and make them over into assimil- 

 able food. They are independent. Plants without green 

 foliage cannot make food: they must have it made for them 

 or they die. They are dependent. 

 The potato sprout (Fig. 42) cannot 

 collect and elaborate carbon dioxid. 

 It lives on the food stored in the 

 tuber. 



178. All plants with natumlhj 

 white or blanched parts are dependent. 

 Their leaves do not develop. They 

 live on organic matter — that which 

 has been made by a plant or an ani- 

 mal. The Indian pipe, aphyllon 

 (Fig. 118), beech drop, coral root 

 (Fig. 119) among flower -producing 

 plants, also mushrooms and other 

 fungi (Figs. 120, 121) are examples. 



179. PARASITES AND SAPROPHYTES 

 — A plant which is dependent on a 

 living plant or animal is a parasite, 

 and the plant or animal on which it 

 lives is the host. The dodder is a 

 true parasite. So are the rusts and 

 mildews which attack leaves and 

 shoots and injure them. 



(85) 



118. A parasite, growing in 

 woods.— Aphyllon. It ii 

 in bloom. 



