166 Epiphyta, and Parasitic Plants of the United States. 



apt its resemblance or name, it may be a question, whether the 

 simple taste which dictates the admiration of the flower, would 

 not have proved as beneficial to the general happiness, as that 

 more luxurious taste which invented both the name and its origin. 

 Another cogenus, and you have Hypopithys, of which " H. lan- 

 uginosa" is by no means rare in the neighborhood of Boston, and 

 is a distinct parasite, affixing its densely crowded stems to the roots 

 of trees. 



And have you not often observed the golden and glittering 

 thread-like branches of the twining Cascuta, climbing with an as- 

 piring habit, not unlike its more gigantic, though not parasitic sis- 

 ter vegetables, up the slender stem of some delicate grass or plant 

 herb ; by the rapidity of its growth, and jiredaiory disposition, 

 draining the very vital energy from its supporter, till overclimbing, 

 and overreaching, it still progresses onward, over the topmost fo- 

 liage, and lays hold of whatever next presents itself, till all are in- 

 volved in inextricable confusion ; and then, as if in triumph at the 

 mischief it has occasioned, cover its leafless, voluble stems, with a 

 mass of clustered flowers ? 



The first growth of the Cascuta exhibits an anomaly of a vas- 

 cular plant with perfect seeds, germinating without any cotyledon. 

 A few other plants arranged under the exogenae on account of their 

 organization, are, in common with this, in fact, acotyledonous. 

 The absence of cotyledons, has led to the theory of their presence 

 in a consolidated, and consequently unfolded or undeveloped con- 

 dition. 



Throughout the Western States, you will find, particularly up- 

 on the branches of the elm, the sempervirent mistletoe (Kiscum 

 verticillatum), whose parasitic and epiphytic character, and sup- 

 posed virtues so early attracted notice. It is one of the few plants 

 connected with the superstitions of a barbarous age, and from its 

 rare occurrence on the oak, was estimated, when discovered in that 

 situation, as peculiarly sacred. But like many other things that 

 have nothing but antiquity to recommend them, its fictitious good 

 qualities are overlooked, while its more prominent character of 

 disfiguring the branches of its otherwise graceful and elegant sup- 

 porter, are only noticeable. 



Farther south, in Florida, and on the sea coast of Georgia and 

 Carolina, we meet with a species of the true and genuine epiphyte, 

 in the " Epidendrum conopseum." This is the only representa- 

 tive in the United States, of that curious genus. It has been 

 found growing on the trunks of the noble " Magnolia grandiflora," 

 both by Nuttall and Elliott, and by the latter, observed also on sev- 

 eral species of oak. 



In the last number of the American Gardener's Magazine, for 

 April, it is incautiously stated, speaking of this plant, that it is 

 " interesting as the only parasitical plant yet discovered in the United 



