196 THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



themselves by sucker-like mouths to the bark of 

 the harder plant up which they climb, and feed 

 upon its already elaborated juices. Our English 

 dodder is an example of such a plant. It has no 

 leaves of its ov^n, but consists entirely of a mass 

 of red stems, bearing clusters of pretty pale pink 

 flowers. 



Other plants show another form of parasitism. 

 Misletoe is one of these. It fastens itself to a 

 poplar or an apple-tree (very seldom an oak) and 

 sucks its juices. But it has also green leaves of 

 its own, which do real work of eating and 

 assimilating as well. It is therefore not quite 

 such a parasite as the dodder. Several plants 

 are similarly half-parasitic on the roots of wheat 

 and grasses. Among them I may mention, as 

 English instances, the cow-wheat, the yellow 

 rattle, and the pretty little eyebright. 



Broomrape is a parasite of a different sort. It 

 grows on the roots of clover, and has no true 

 leaves ; in their place it produces short scales, 

 which contain no chlorophyll. Several other 

 plants are also devoid of chlorophyll, and there- 

 fore cannot eat carbonic acid for themselves. 

 They live like animals on materials laid by for 

 them by other plants. Such are toothwort, a 

 pale rose-coloured leafless plant, with pretty 

 spiked flowers, which grows by suckers on the 

 roots of hazel-trees. The bird's nest orchid, a 

 delicate brown plant with curious ghost-like 

 blossoms, feeds rather on the organised matter 

 in decaying leaves among thick beechwoods. In 

 this book I have purposely confined your atten- 

 tion for the most part to the true green plants, 



