84 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
Stamens and pistil far advanced in formation, the petals — of no 
positive necessity to the plant's welfare, — very much shorter. 
.Three or four days later the petals have become about as long as 
the stamens, and when the flower opens they are fully twice as 
long. It is as if Dame Nature realized that the stamens and pistil 
were necessities, and resolved to make them first, and then expend 
her surplus energyq in the ornamental. 
If we dig into the earth at blooming time a new bud will be 
found near the old one on the strong brown rootstock. Later, as 
the fruit ripens and the plant dies to the ground this bud, white 
because deprived of sunlight, will have developed into two tiny 
leaves perfect in outline and venation; and surmounting them is a 
tiny flower bud with stamens plainly visible by means of a glass. 
All are protected by the bract covering noticed in early spring. 
Other plants make elaborate preparation for the next season, but 
so exquisite a plant in miniature the writer has never found else- 
where. 
EPIPHYTES. 
Epiphytes have been defined as plants which live or grow upon 
other plants without deriving their sustenance from them, and 
thus they can be readily distinguished /from parasites, which ab- 
sdi'b their nutriment direct from their hosts. It is much more 
difficult to draw a line of demarcation between epiphites and ter- 
restrial plants for the latter are sometimes found growing in ac- 
cumulations of decaying vegetable matter upon trees, and some 
plants seem almost independent of station if other conditions are 
suitable. There are, however, many plants whose sole habitat 
seems to be the bark of trees, and others which are rarely found 
'except in accumulations of decaying vegetation in forks of the 
branches and crevices of the trunks, and to these the name epi- 
phytes is applicable. One usually thinks of orchids in this con- 
nection, but there are many other orders which contain epiphytic 
representatives, while many orchids are purely terrestrial. 
Puutting aside the lower cryptogams, among which epiphytes 
