470 THE BROOM-RAPE FAMILY. 



THE BR00n=RAPE FAfllLY. 



OrobanchacecE. 



A group of root parasites with leaves reduced to alternate scales^ and 

 7v/iich bear perfect irregular floivers^ their corollas bei?ig ga?nopetalous 

 and two- lipped. 



SQUAW-ROOT. CANCER-ROOT. 



Conopkoh's Americana. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Broom-rape. Pale yellow. Scentless. Florida to Maitie. April-August. 



Flcnoers : perfect ; numerous ; growing in a dense, very thick spike. Calyx: tubu- 

 lar; four-toothed with two bracts under the base. Corolla: two-lipped; the upper 

 lip arched and notched at the summit; the lower one short and three-toothed. 

 Stamens : on the tube of the corolla ; exserted. Steins: four to ten inches high 

 clustered from the base and covered with whitish or light brown stiff scales; fleshy. 



This curious, light brown herb, the only species of eastern North America, 

 finds for us perhaps its chief attraction in that it opens its bloom in earliest 

 spring. Then the pale yellow flowers peep out from its scaly cone. It lives 

 in the woods and is a root parasite at the bases of trees, of which it seems to 

 choose almost exclusively the oaks. 



Leptdmnium Virginidmun, beech drops, more showy in its purple-and- 

 white, striped bloom than the squaw-root, chooses to grow on the beech 

 rather than the oaks. Mostly its complete, upper flowers are sterile while 

 below are the cleistogamous and fertile ones. The stem is branched in the 

 way of a panicle, and sometimes it becomes quite high. 



Orobdnche ravibsa, hemp broom-rape, another strange-looking yellowish 

 parasite, thrives abundantly in the south on the roots of hemp and tobacco. 

 It is, however, not a native but adventive from Europe. 



O. mhior, clover broom-rape, herb-bane, or more viciously known as hell- 

 root, is also a naturalised plant and parasitic on the clovers, vetches and 

 wild carrots. It also is yellowish brown, the faintest tinge of blue showing 

 sometimes in the limb of its corollas. 



I 



