SOME CURIOUS PLANTS. 



BROOM RAPE. 



Among the wild vegetable products of our forests may- 

 be found many strange-looking plants unlike any of 

 those with which we are familiar in our gardens or fields. 



One of these is the Broom Rape (Ovobanche). It 

 comes up in the woods, often by the pathway, and at 

 first glance you take it for a little bundle of hard dry 

 brown twigs, but on closer inspection you see that it is a 

 plant with life and growth in it. 



The stems are clustered together at the base. It can 

 hardly be said to have any roots, and yet it is bearing 

 its flowers almost underground as well as upon its scaly 

 stems. Of foliage it has none, at least no green leaves, 

 only scales dry and brown, and the flowers are simply 

 two little hard-beaked, bead-shaped scales, made notice- 

 able by the abundance of yellowish stamens and anthers 

 which look like little heaps of sawdust. The stigmas 



