184 PLANT LIFE 



intimate connection with the wood of the 

 tree which is necessary both to fix the parasite 

 to its support and to draw from the host 

 plant the supplies of water it requires for its 

 own purposes. 



There are other near relatives of the 

 mistletoe, belonging to the genus Loranthus, 

 which are far more dangerous and destructive 

 parasites. These plants are common in the 

 tropics, and they form leafy, bush-like growths 

 in the trees they infest. Many of them bear 

 beautiful trusses of red flowers, and they some- 

 what recall the appearance of fuchsia bushes 

 perched among the trunks and boughs on the 

 outskirts of the forest. 



Like the mistletoe, it is the roots of a loran- 

 thus that have undergone important changes 

 in relation to the parasitic habit. They arise 

 as sucker-like outgrowths from special creep- 

 ing stems of the loranthus which grow along 

 the surface of the tree. As the sucker-bearing 

 branches are freely produced, and may reach 

 a considerable length, the parasite often does 

 very serious damage. 



It is not a little curious that in a large 

 family of plants like the Loranthaceae, to which 

 both Loranthus and the mistletoe belong, some 

 species should not have advanced still farther 

 in the parasitic direction. But although 

 nearly all of them draw their water supplies 

 from another plant, they have never taken 

 the final step of absorbing from it the organic 

 food. They have consequently, or perhaps 



