SOME CURIOUS PLANTS. 197 



soon after being pulled, as if polluted by contact with 

 the human hand. In the herbarium it loses all its 

 beauty, turning black as ink, nor can it retain its semi- 

 transparent texture. To appreciate the plant it must be 

 seen growing in the shade of the forest. 



There is another species, found only in pine and ever- 

 green woods, which is of a tawny color, the stem woolly 

 and bearing from three to- five flowers. The bells, when 

 upright, are filled with drops of clear honey. 



This is known as Sweet Pine Sap. Like the uniflora 

 the Pine Sap (Monotropa hypopitys) is a perfect flower 

 and not a fungous growth, as some have supposed. It 

 also is leafless, the foliage being mere thin scales arranged 

 along the scape. 



THE DODDER. 



The Dodder (Guscuta) is. another of our eccentric 

 plants, of which we have several native species. 



The singularity of one of these struck me as very 

 remarkable, from the attachment it showed for one 

 particular little plant, a slender species of Golden Rod. 

 There were other plants growing near these Dodders 

 which would have given all the needed support, but 

 they evidently did not possess the same attraction and 

 were passed by — it was the little Solidago and none 

 other. It really looked like will in the Dodders. 



And what was strange, too, both plants seemed 

 perfectly healthy — while the clustered flowers of the 

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