

280 PLANTS GROWING IN DRY SOIL. 
place taken by yellowish bracts. Stem: copper yellow; twisting and twining 
like a bunch of tangled wire ; parasitic. 
We may well inquire into the ways of this little parasite, 
which, although its victims are of a different class, is quite as 
uncanny as the insectivorous plants. Its coiled seed drops 
intc the ground, germinates, and sends up a yellow stem, which, 
when it has hardly reached two inches high, begins to stretch 
out for some shrub or plant about which to entwine itself. 
It then puts out suckers which penetrate the bark and drain 
the already assimilated sap of the plant. The original ground 
stem withers and falls away. The dodder is therefore left 
wholly dependent for nourishment upon its victim. Its persist- 
ent, close growth about the bark of a shrub inflicts great dam-— 
age. 
The tangled gold threads are interesting when we come 
upon them; but once the habits of the plant are known it 
cannot but inspire us with a feeling of repulsion. 
COMMON MILKWEED. SILKWEED. (flate CXZ/V.) 
Asclépias Syriaca, 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Milkweed. Purplish pink. Scentless. Mostly northward. June-August. 
Flower-clusters : often four and a half inches in diameter. Construction, see 
A. incarnata, page 76. ods: two only, which burst open and let fly seeds 
with beautiful, silky tufts. Leaves: very large; six to eight inches long; 
opposite, or scattered ; oblong ; pubescent underneath ; glabrous on the upper 
surface. Stem: tall ; coarse ; with a milky juice; pubescent. 
One of the greatest charms of the wild flowers is that they 
never have to be bought. The beggar can enjoy the world 
flushed with myriad, evanescent hues that blend into each other 
like the delicate splendour of a bird’s plumage quite as well as 
cana monarch on his throne. The only requisite is to have 
the discriminating eyes that see: see as do the artists. 
Barefooted urchins think, undoubtedly, that the common 
milkweed blows for them, and the pompons they make from its 
seed pods for their torn straw hats become them extremely 
well. They slumber sweetly upou the pillows and mattresses 

