127 



smooth all over, and turning quite black when drying. Leaves 

 opposite, long lance-shaped, entire. The bracts or the leaves 

 which grow among the flowers, have two or three very deep 

 teeth on each edge, near the base of them, and are tinged 

 with red. The calyx is short. The corolla four times as long, 

 and yellow. The seeds are black, two in each capsule, similar 

 in shape to the grains of wheat, whence the Latin name, which 

 means Black Wheat. 



O. S. Crested Cow-wheat, Purple Cow-wheat, and Small Flowered 

 Yellow Cow-wheat. 



BROOMRAPE. OROBANCHE. 



GREAT BROOMRAPE. < Orolanche major. 

 Plate 9, fig. 15. 



Did you ever in passing along a common where the furze 

 grows, or over a gravelly, healthy spot, see growing up among 

 the bushes a curious brown plant, with a large close spike of 

 gaping flowers, each with a little brown bract under it, with 

 a thick fleshy, brittle stem, knobbed at the ground, and bearing 

 upon it all the way up tapering scales, but no leaves, nor 

 branches ? If you have found this it is one of the Broomrapes ; 

 if not it is well worth the search, as an instance of a herb 

 which has nothing green about it, and also of a parasitic plant 

 or a vegetable blood-sucker, one which is unable to draw from 

 the earth or air its own sustenance, and therefore attaches its 

 roots to some other plant, and draws from that the nourishment 

 it needs. Its seeds too, which are borne in tens of thousands, 

 will not grow unless they touch the root of furze or heath, 

 or some other plant, but will remain uninjured in the ground 

 for years, until they gain such a protection and support; when 

 immediately they run their fibres into it, and in a month grow 

 a foot or more high, and put forth their curious flowers. 



O. S. Clove-scented Broom-rape, Tall Broom-rape, Small Broom-rape, 

 Red Broom-rape, Purple Broom-rape, and Branched Broom-rape some of 

 them very rare. 



