440 THE MORNING-GLORY FAMILY. 



taneously. Outside of Jacksonville, at an ostrich farm, I saw it blooming 

 in great patches on the ground apparently that the gawky birds, with their 

 love of colour, might have the simple pleasure of trampling it down. 



DODDER FAMILY. 



CttscittacecE. 



A la?'ge family of slender^ tiuining parasites mostly with fuinute 

 fringed or crenate scales borne o/i the tube of the corolla and accepting 

 as hosts various herbs and shrubs to which they attach themselves by 

 means of minute suckers. 



COMPACT DODDER. 



Ciiscuta compact a. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Dodder. W/iite. Scentless, Texas and Alabama to Ontario. July-Septeviber, 



Flowers: very small, growing in dense, sessile clusters. Calyx: with five oval 

 sepals, crenate on their edges and subtended by similar bracts. Corolla: salver- 

 form, the five oblong, blunt lobes somewhat shorter than the tube, and bearing 

 narrow, short and fringed scales. Stamens: five, included. Capsule : oblong, en- 

 wrapped by the corolla. A yellowish white vine, twining about various shrubs. 



" The fair Cuscutaceae please with laboured elegance and studied ease, 

 With shy approach they spread their dangerous charms. 

 And round their victims wind their wiry arms." 



— Dr. Erasmus Darwin. 



Even among parasites the dodders have a bad reputation, for they are 

 absolutely without conscience, and moreover their ways are uncanny. In 

 the beginning, after their coiled seeds drop into the ground, they germinate 

 and finally send up stems instilled with the principle of seeking something 

 to twine about and from which, through the means of their suckers, to draw 

 a supply of already assimilated nourishment. As soon as such an unfortunate 

 individual is found, the original ground-stem withers and dies, leaving the dod- 

 der therefore wholly dependent for life on the host plant, to which often it 

 wreaks great injury. Frequently we see the dodders' filiform yellowish stems 

 forming an interwoven mesh about some victim and even spreading out to 

 encircle others in their coils. As a genus it is often difificult to distinguish 

 one member from another, as their specific characteristics lie mostly in the 



