ORGANOTOPIC PRANTS. 
73 
species is well called by Gray “a singular plant.” I had 
never seen it and was too late to find it in flower, but in 
searching under some oaks for other plants I noticed what 
seemed to be some dried pine cones sticking out of the 
ground. It struck me that their erect attitude could scarcely 
be the result of accident and I examined them more closely. 
Of course I was delighted to find that I had at last got my 
long sought ‘ ‘squaw root, 5 ’ ( Conopholis Americana.) The 
plants are but a few inches high and the flowers grow in a 
dense bracted spike. It is the stiff, scaly bracts which give 
the spike when in fruit its cone-like aspect. 
The so-called hemiparasites are plants which subsist 
only partially upon the elaborated material of other plants, 
They fasten themselves by their lateral rootlets upon the 
roots of the host. They belong mostly to the figwort fam¬ 
ily (Scrophulariacese). Among familiar plants of this 
kind are lousewort (Pedicularis), painted cup (Castilleja) 
and some Gerardias. The common bastard toad flax (Co- 
mondra) is also supposed to be a hemiparasite. 
The other groups of organotopic plants will be consid¬ 
ered in a future article. 
