i6o THE TREE BOOK 



tree? Food is gathered from the soil by the 

 little thread-like fibers of a colorless fuhgnis 

 whose fairy meshes are woven ia webs about 

 the root tips. This fungus has no chlorophyll 

 grains, and never sees the sunlight; hence it 

 would soon die if dependent upon its own exer- 

 tions for food. So it has established "a treaty 

 of reciprocity" with the tree. It gathers plant 

 food from the soil and transmits it to the tree. 

 The tree sends the food up in the form of crude 

 sap to the leaf laboratories to be worked over 

 into starch. A part of this product is returned 

 to the roots and then the fungi claim their share. 

 Thus the big plant and the little plant live on, 

 mutually helpful, in a fair exchange which is no 

 robbery. In transplanting beech, trees, you 

 must be careful not to destroy the root fungtis, 

 else the tree will be doomed to die of starvation. 

 A beechwoods is a forest enchanted. How 

 delightful it is to tip-toe softly about on the 

 fairy carpet of small ferns and moss which 

 spreads so invitingly! Here and there in the 

 dainty green gleams the reddish-purple and rus- 

 set shades of the beech-drops. These are root- 

 parasites whose gay coloring of stem and flower 

 and the mere scales which take the place of 

 leaves, proclaim plainly that they do not work 

 for a living. They rob their host and victim of 



