MISTLETOE TRIBE 



beautiful red and purple tints. Hedges 

 and thickets, especially on a chalk or lime- 

 stone soil. — Fl. June. Shrub. 



2. C. sitccica (Dwarf Cornel). — Very 

 different in habit from the last ; root 

 woody, creeping, and sending up annual 

 flowering stems, which arc about six inches 

 high and bear each a terminal ^tmbel of 

 minute dark purple flowers with yellow 

 stamens. At the base of each umbel are 

 four egg-shaped yellow bmcts tinged witii 

 purple. The fruit, a red berry, is said by 

 the Highlanders to create appetite, and 

 hence is called Lus-a-chraois, plant of 

 gluttony. Alpine pastures in Scotland and 

 the north of England ; rare. — Fl. July, 

 August. Perennial. 



133 



Young shoot of the Wild 

 Cornel 



Sub-Class III 



COROLLIFLOR^ 



Petals unitecl, bearing the stamens. 



Natural Order XXXIX 



LORANTHACE^.— Mistletoe Tribe 



Stamens and pistils usually on different plants ; calyx attached 

 to the ovary, with 2 bracts at the base, sometimes almost wanting ; 

 petals 4-8, united at the base, expanding in a valveAike manner ; 

 stamens equalling the petals in number and opposite to them ; ovary 

 i-celled, i-seeded ; style i or o ; stigma simple ; fruit succulent, 

 i-ccUcd, I-Eccdcd ; seed germinating only when attached to some 

 growing plant of a different species. Shrubby plants of singular 

 structure and habit, growing only (with rare exceptions) on the 

 branches of other trees, and therefore true parasites. The leaves 

 are usually in pairs and fleshy, the flowers incon.spicuous ; but this 

 is not always the case, for one species, Npytsia floribunda, which 

 grows in the neighbourhood of King George's Sound, bears an 

 abundance of bright orange-coloured flowers, producing an appear- 

 ance which the colonists compare to a tree on fire, and hence they 

 call it the Fire-tree. This species is not a parasite, but the greater 

 part of the tribe refuse to grow except on living vegetables. The 

 seed of most species is coated with a viscid substance, by which it 

 adheres to the bark, and which in a few days becomes a transparent 

 glue. Soon a thread-like radicle is sent forth, which, from whatever 



