Red and Indefinites 



Beech-drops 



{Septamnhim yirginianiim) Broom-rape family 

 {Epifegus yirginiana of Gray) 



Flowers — Small, dull purple and white, tawny, or brownish 

 striped; scattered along loose, tiny bracted, ascending 

 branches. Stem : Brownish or reddish tinged, slender, tough, 

 branching above, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, from brittle, fibrous roots. 



Preferred Habitat — Under beech, oak, and chestnut trees. 



Floivei'ing Season — August — October. 



Distribution — New Brunswick, westward to Ontario and Missouri, 

 south to the Gulf States. 



Nearly related to the broom-rape is this less attractive pirate, 

 a taller, brownish-purple plant, with a disagreeable odor, whose 

 erect, branching stem without leaves is still furnished with 

 brownish scales, the remains of what were once green leaves in 

 virtuous ancestors, no doubt. But perhaps even these relics of 

 honesty may one day disappear. Nature brands every sinner 

 somehow; and the loss of green from a plant's leaves may be 

 taken as a certain indication that theft of another's food stamps it 

 with this outward and visible sign of guilt. The grains of green 

 to which foliage owes its color are among the most essential of 

 products to honest vegetables that have to grub in the soil for a 

 living, since it is only in such cells as contain it that assimilation of 

 food can take place. As chlorophyll, or leaf-green, acts only under 

 the influence of light and air, most plants expose all the leaf sur- 

 face possible; but a parasite, which absorbs from others juices 

 already assimilated, certainly has no use for chlorophyll, nor for 

 leaves either; and in the broom-rape, beech-drops, and Indian 

 pipe, among other thieves, we see leaves degenerated into bracts 

 more or less without color, according to the extent of their crime. 

 Now they cannot manufacture carbo-hydrates, even if they would, 

 any more than fungi can. 



On the beech-drop's slender branches two kinds of flowers 

 are seated : below are the mrnute fertile ones, which never open, 

 but, without imported pollen, ripen an abundance of seed with 

 literally the closest economy. Nevertheless, to save the species 

 from still deeper degeneracy through perpetual self-fertilization, 

 small purplish-striped flowers above them mature stigmas and 

 anthers on different days, and invite insect visits to help them pro- 

 duce a few cross-fertilized seeds. Even a few will save it. Every 

 plant which bears cleistogamous or blind flowers — violets, wood- 

 sorrel, jewel-weed, among others — must also display some showy 

 ones. 



389 



