206 



MISTLETOES AND LORANTHUSES. 



sight, is surprising, that Mistletoe-plants are rarely seated upon the upper surface 

 of branches, but very frequently on the sides. For the dung of thrushes, which 

 live upon Mistletoe-berries, is in the form of a semi-fluid, highly viscid mass, ductile 

 like bird-lime; and, even when it is deposited upon the upper surface of slanting 

 branches, it immediately runs down the sides, sometimes extending in ropes 

 20 or 30 centimeters in length. Owing to the viscous mass thus following the 

 law of gravity, the Mistletoe-seeds imbedded in it are conveyed to the sides, and 

 even to the under surface of the bark, and there remain cemented. 



Fig. 46.— The European Mistletoe (Viscum album). 



It may be a long time before a seed of the kind germinates, especially if it does 

 not become attached until the autumn. The embryo is completely surrounded in 

 the seed by reserve food. It is club-shaped and comparatively large, and is dis- 

 tinguished by the fact that the two oblong cotyledons, which are closely pressed 

 together, but often somewhat wavy at the margins, are coloured dark green by 

 chlorophyll, like the environing cellular mass filled with reserve materials. In the 

 process of germination the axis of the embryo, especially the part lying beneath 

 the cotyledons, and passing into the hemispherical radicle, lengthens out; the white 

 seed-coat is pierced, and the radicle makes its appearance through the breach. 

 Under all circumstances the emergent radicle is directed towards the bark of the 

 branch to which the seed is adherent. This is the case even when the seed chances 



