vi The Web of Life 107 



Best known among these, especially to tradition, is the 

 odd Cynomorium, a plant of fungus-like appearance, long 

 known as Fungus melitensis. It is found in the islands of 

 Malta and Gozo, and is remarkable for its scarlet colour 

 and blood-like juice, which, according to the " doctrine of 

 signatures," were interpreted as providential indications of 

 its value as a cure for all diseases accompanied by bleed- 

 ing. Even stranger are the Rafflesias, found in the Indian 

 islands and in South America. They have neither a 

 developed stem nor leaves, but are reduced practically to 

 a flower closely fixed to the roots of some other plant 

 (usually a species of Cissus). The largest species, dis- 

 covered in 1818 in Sumatra by Dr. Arnold, and sent by 

 Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles to Robert Brown, who hence 

 gratefully named it Rafflesia Arnoldi, measures about a 

 yard in diameter, and is, one need hardly say, the largest 

 of all known flowers. It seems, however, a repulsive giant, 

 fleshy and fungus-like, coarse and gaudy, worst of all, fetid 

 as carrion, and hence swarming with appropriate insects, 

 who even lay their eggs in preparation for its foul decay, 

 and so, too, doubtless render the service of fetching and 

 carrying pollen from flower to flower. 



Saprophytes. A large number of plants, especially in 

 the woods, some with and some without chlorophyll, 

 depend in great part at least on the abundant organic 

 material afforded by the decaying leaves and other parts 

 of plants in other words, on the humus or vegetable mould 

 of the soil. This is true, for instance, of the Bird's-nest 

 Orchis (Neottia nidus-avis), of the rootless Corallorhiza, 

 of the little twae-blade {Lister a cordata), and of many other 

 orchids. But it is very difficult to draw any hard and fast 

 line between parasites, which live on living organisms, and 

 the so-called saprophytes, which live on decaying organic 

 matter. Thus the species of cow -wheat (Melampyrum) 



