100 



Plants and their Wars in South Africa 



A saprophyte is a plant 



/hich lives on dead or decaying 

 matter. Mushrooms, yeast 

 plants, the mould on bread 

 and cheese, and some 

 bacteria are examples. Sa- 

 prophytes are very useful 

 members of plant society. 

 Mushrooms change decaying 

 vegetable matter into whole- 

 some food. When insects or 



Fig. 84. — A piece rif a braneh 

 of an apple tree cut through 

 lengthwise, into which a 

 young mistletoe-plant ha-s 

 driven its sucking loots (re- 

 duced). (From Thom^ and 

 Bennett's " Structural and 

 Physiological Botany".} 



i^'lfj. 85. — .SWr(VJ/i/;i'/(' .w;//;'7^///f^/ (ordi^r Balauophoracet^), a patasilc grow- 

 ing on the roots of ICkebcrgia and Acacia in the Eastern Province. I. Pistil- 

 late, n. Staniinate fiower. 



animals die, or leaves fall, there would be a great accumula- 

 tion of useless matter were it not for the saprophytes, which 

 seize upon tliis decaying matter and make it ready to be used 



