THE MISTLETOE AND PARASITIC PLANTS. 201 
The dodders belong to the natural order Cu-scutacece, and 
there are five species of dodder in Great Britain. The common 
English dodder is a white or reddish-looking annual, which 
spreads itself like a mass of living threads around branches 
of heath and furze, on dry wastes and commons. Unlike the 
mistletoe, the dodder springs originally from the ground, and 
when its little plumule first emerges, if it find no living plant 
near on which to graft itself, it withers and dies ; but if there 
be one within reach, it surrounds the stem in a very little 
time, and henceforth lives by its suckers only on the fostering 
plant— the original root in the ground becoming obliterated 
and dried up. One species of dodder especially attacks the 
flax-plant; another the clover; and but lately in a meadow 
in Sussex, I saw most curious-looking masses of this clover 
dodder. It had attacked the growing clover in patches, which 
assumed the form of large rings or circles, and at a little 
distance it looked like carefully-arranged heaps of burned 
leaves or sea-weed ; it was not until after close inspection 
that I discovered what this strange appearance was, and how 
tei’ribly this intrusive plant had injured and despoiled the 
clover on which it throve. These parasites are very injurious 
to the plants they attack, depriving them of their nourish- 
ment and strangling them in then' folds. Mr. Griffiths 
speaks of a gigantic species in Aflfghanistan, which even preys 
upon itself, and which half-covered a 'willow tree twenty or 
thirty feet high. 
Of False Parasites or Epiphytes, as they are called, we have 
numbers of familiar instances in Great Britain. They generally 
fasten themselves in the crevices and hollows of the back of 
trees, and afterwards affix themselves so firmly, that they can 
only be torn away with considerable force. Lichens and 
mosses are of this kind. In humid atmospheres and in damp 
districts they are abundant, but in the warm moist woods of 
tropical regions they form a most striking feature in the 
landscape. On a single tree may be found such a number 
of different parasitic plants, as would cover a large space if 
planted in the ground. The Potlios plants then become para- 
sitic and grow on the boughs of the loftiest trees, through 
whose foliage the large white flower rises. Strange Orchidaceae 
and Bromeliae, imbibing nourishment from the atmosphere, 
grow in the angles of the branches and fill up every crevice in 
the bark of the tree. The prettiest ferns, like our Lycopodium 
and Ivy, twine up on the surface of the trunk, while silver- 
grey Tillandsiae hang from the branches ; not to mention the 
multitude of climbers, which, once rooted in the earth, have 
ascended the trees and continue to flourish there when not 
a trace of their root remains. The long shoots of these plants 
VOL. II. — NO. VI. r 
