86 
attempts to raise seedlings of the Christmas Tree have been made 
but up to the present all have failed. The nature of the para- 
sitism of the tree suggests a method of raising it successfully 
the planting of the seed in a spot where its roots when formed 
will have easy access to the young roots of a plant which has been 
proved to be a host. 
The haustoriogen is not the end of tin 1 Christmas Tree Toot. 
It is a lateral growth. The root continues to push its way through 
the soil to look for fresh victims. If it comes into contact with a 
large root it may run along the large host giving rise to a number 
of these parasitic outgrowths. Where the Moshv ring is developed 
round a root it grows in size but not in internal diameter, so that 
as the host root itself grows the haustoriogen acts as a ligature 
and gradually strangles it. It is a common thing to ujid a host 
root ending abruptly in the Meshy haustoriogen of the Christmas 
Tree, because the lower part, being strangled and starved, has died 
and rotted away. Sometimes a root attempts to word oil the 
attacks of the Nuytsia root by the development of cork and in 
some cases is successful in preventing the entry of the haustoria. 
If, however, the root is a small one, the haustoriogen ring may be 
formed just the same even though the haustoriil cannot gain en- 
trance, and the root is strangled by the ligature m time. 
In its choice of hosts Nuytsia is very cosmopolitan. It attacks 
herbs, shrubs, and trees impartially. Exotics and natives, annuals, 
biennials and perennials, monocotyledons and dicotyledons are 
treated alike. I have found it attacking geraniums, roses, carrots, 
broad beans, black nightshade, sorrel (Rumex acetosella), couch 
grass, the so-called tree lucerne (Cytisus prolifera var. alba), vines, 
oranges, IJibbertia hyperieoides, Banksia attenuata, Banksia 
Menziesii, Stirlingia lati folia, Melaleuca huegelii, Melaleuca 
viminea, Conostephium pendulum, Jaeksonia furcellata, Calythrix 
Mavescens, and Acacia pulchella. Further search will probably 
reveal it on a great many more species. Sometimes in its search- 
ings for a host the Christmas Tree roof comes into contact with 
another Christmas Tree root and attacks it in the same way that 
it would an ordinary root, but this is rare. It is analagous with 
the self-attack frequently noticed in such climbing parasites as 
Cassytha, the Bush Dodder, which nearly always recoils on and 
parasitises itself at some point or other. Very often the attack 
of the Christmas Tree is so strenuous that the host plant is starved 
and killed, in which case the fragile root which has given rise to 
the haustoriogen shrivels away, leaving: the Meshy haustoriogen 
attached to the dead host root with hardly any sign of ever having 
had any connection, it looks at first sight like a fungal body, but 
a section shows its true nature by revealing the vascular tissue 
and the haustoria. 
