138 SYMBIOSIS 



with associated life. More pronouncedly " sociological " still, 

 Prof. Farmer continues thus : 



The parasitic habit has appeared independently in a number of other 

 families of flowering plants. In some of them it is characteristic of practi- 

 cally all the members, just as in the Loranthaceae mentioned above. As 

 a matter of fact, in very many of the larger natural orders or families we 

 also find species which have more or less broken away from the ranks 

 of typical green plants in connection with their assumption of saprophytic 

 or parasitic habits. Sometimes we can construct, within the limits of nearly 

 related groups, all the stages, starting from a sort of dalliance with 

 robbery which is hardly betrayed by any essential structural change, but 

 culminating in species which, so far as their vegetative structure is con- 

 cerned, have lost all resemblance to the forms of higher plants. Thus 

 in the alliance or family to which the snapdragon belongs, the familiar 

 little Eye-bright (Euphrasia), abundant on grassy downs, the pink Louse- 

 wort (Pedicularis) of the marshes, and the yellow Cow-wheat (Melam- 

 pyrum) of the woods, all have begun to supplement the legitimate stock 

 of food which they manufacture for themselves by stealing from adjacent 

 plants. (Italics mine.) 



We have seen that the saprophytically inclined fungi amongst 

 plants may yet, by hard physical work, as humble wage-earners, 

 (though somewhat precariously) redeem their existence and play 

 a useful part in organic civilisation. Their lowliness of disposition 

 does not, however, entitle them to a high kind of partnership. 



What emerges more particularly from considerations such as 

 these is this, that the science of Biology could and should 

 become of immense value as an aid in the conduct of life. It 

 could and should show abundantly, what is of the utmost impor- 

 tance to know, that it is the conscientious organism alone which, 

 strictly pursuing a legitimate pathway of life, and refusing to- 

 dally with evil, in the end achieves successful survival. 



