190 PLANT LIFE 



regarded at once as parasites. We have 

 already seen that vast numbers of the fungi 

 feed on dead remains, rather than on living 

 plants and animals. There are, likewise, many 

 flowering plants which apparently behave in 

 a similar manner and they are generally, on 

 that account, classed as saprophytes. But, 

 as we shall see, a closer examination of the 

 facts indicates that many of them more 

 nearly resemble the parasites after all, though 

 the method of their parasitism is well con- 

 cealed. The Bird's-nest Orchis furnishes an 

 excellent illustration of this. 



The bird's-nest orchis (Neottia, Fig. 21) is a 

 fairly common, though frequently overlooked 

 inhabitant of the humus soil of dense wood- 

 lands. It lives under the ground in the leaf 

 mould, except when it pushes up its cluster 

 of sickly looking flowers on a yellowish or 

 brown stem in early summer. No green 

 leaves are produced, though the flowering 

 shaft bears rather large brown ones. Hence 

 the plant is unable to manufacture carbo- 

 hydrate food for itself in the way that its 

 green relatives can do. Traced below the 

 soil, the flowering stalk is seen to spring from 

 a short, stumpy root-stock from which arises 

 a huddled crowd of short, brittle roots. 



The special interest of the bird's-nest 

 orchis in the present connection centres in 

 these roots, for it is through them that, 

 somehow or other, the stores of food locked 

 up in the humus soil are absorbed by the 



