72 
NATURK S^TUDY. 
“witches’ brooms.’’ Certain branches have developed 
clusters of greatly elongated branchlets which have as¬ 
sumed a horizontal position, the whole collection being 
very broom-like in aspect. These abnormal growths have 
been caused by the little parasite Arceuthobium pusillum 
(Razoumofskya pusilla), closely allied to the western and 
southern mistletoe. As the plants have stems less than 
an inch in length it is not strange that the species has 
been little known. It is especially interesting to us as be¬ 
ing the only parasite in this region which germinates 
directly upon the host plant. 
[For very interesting accounts of the dwarf mistletoe the 
reader is referred to Rhodora , Vol. II., No. 13, where are 
also excellent plates of host and parasite and “witches’ 
brooms.’’] 
Beside our one stem parasite, the dodder, and our one 
tree parasite, the dwarf mistletoe, we have three root para¬ 
sites, all members of the broom-rape family, so called be¬ 
cause the type species infest particularly members of the 
leguminous family in the old world known as “broom.’’ 
Our species inhabit principally dark, damp woods where 
leaf mould abounds. There is a wood on the shore of Take 
Winnipesauke where I have found all three species in a- 
bundance. The first is cancer root, Aphyllon uniflorum, 
(Thalesia uniflora), sending up from an underground stem 
slender scape-like peduncles which bear violet colored or 
whitish flowers. The second grows under beech trees and 
is a branching plant with numerous flowers of two kinds, 
the upper ones larger and open, the lower ones smaller and 
closed. As occurs in some other plants, (e. g., Polygala 
and Amphicarpaea,) it is mostly the lower cleistogamous 
flowers which produce the fruit. This plant is the true 
“beech drops,’’ Epiphegus Virginiana (Teptamnium Vir- 
ginianum,) the plant known as “false beech drops’’ being 
a species of Monotropa, of which, more below. The third 
