' 
[458] TRANS. OF THB ACAD. OF SCIENCE. 8 
exsert with age. The direction of the styles, in the flower 
and on the fruit, rye a tolerably good character. 
been mentioned as a eae reliable specific character. The 
shape and even the texture of the c ae also ought to be 
noted, though in several species (C. Huropea, for example) 
its form is quite variable. 
e number of seeds which ripen in each capsule furnishes 
no distinction, though the species with very crowded flowers, 
and some others with loose flowers also, often develop only 
one or few seeds. The shape and surface of the seed ought 
to be studied more, and will, yet, it is believed, help to distin- 
guish some spec 
As almost all the characters enumerated sili are subject 
e the diagnos 
of a species on a combination of a number o of carbine: but 
as the value of these characters is necessarily differ rently esti- 
mate re different botanists, some will consider as well mark- 
hers wi uw 
e 
certain plants, or families of plants, for their sustenance; an 
Ihave myself at times, thought I discovered an influence of the 
mother plant (or, better, nursing plant; nurse) on the form and 
developme he i 
manure would go with any other plant. If some species seem 
very constantly to prefer certain —- to others, (C. Huro- 
pea, Urtica dioica ; ithymum, Calluna vulgaris, or Ge- 
nista sagittalis ; é. ehlorocarpa, Po a 3 C. Gronovii, 
Cephalanthus ; = et iformis, Salix and, the most marked 
e, C. 
the kind of soil, see: humidity or apaien the shade or sun 
and all the circumstances which suit the nurse, also e best 
= the parasite. On the Moog: succulent harhaceons dico- 
and a few others affect rt shrubs and trees, of course, 
penetrating only the tender bark of the smaller limbs. 
ce are found, also, on acrid or sarser iam plants. I 
have seen them on Jtanunculacee, on Euphorbia, on Cicuta 
and other Umbellifere, on Rhus Toxicoden odin and others ; 
I have seen them, also, though “mig! and rae very thrifty, 
on Monocotyledonee, such as Liliacew, Graminec and others, 
and even on the siliceous i of Equis peo The fact 
is, that, when once attached to a nursing stem, they throw out 
their branches and coil around any plant in the neighborh 
and strike their suckers into the tissue, and grow on any thing 
