DUBLIN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
201 
ON SOME PECULIARITIES OE HABIT IN THE DODDER PLANT (CUSCUTA 
epithymum). 
It is well known to botanists that there is a curious group of plants 
known by the name of Parasites, which derive the whole or the greater 
portion of their nutriment from other plants. Some of these, as the 
misletoe, have leaves of their own, and others, as the Dodder, have none, 
but only naked filaments, studded in the season with small tufts of 
flowers of a delicate pinkish-white. It is believed by some that there is 
a corresponding difference in their mode of feeding, the former having 
leaves of its own, feeding upon the ascending or unelaborated; the latter 
upon the descending or perfected sap. 
Having spent some weeks, last summer, in South Devon, I paid a 
visit to Dartmoor Forest, and spent some very pleasant hours botanizing 
over the Moor. 
In the course of my ramble my attention was arrested by the strange 
appearance of the gorse or furze, which at a little distance appeared to 
have a delicate pinkish hue pervading its green and prickly branches. 
Upon close examination I found that this was occasioned by the inter¬ 
mingling of a vast number of naked filaments or tendrils, studded with 
most elegant little waxy flowers, of a delicate French white colour. 
A botanical friend explained that this curious plant was the Cuscuta 
epithymum , or Dodder plant. 
To those who, for the first time, recognise a plant or specimen which 
they had previously known only from description, I need not describe 
the pleasure with which I examined this curious, very beautiful, but 
very mischievous little plant. 
But my attention was soon arrested by a curious and, I believe, a 
very interesting discovery. Upon one of the specimens I observed two 
blossoms of the moor heath (E. cinerea) in vigorous health, growing upon 
a filament of the Dodder. 
Upon closely examining the immediate locality, I found a stool of 
heath within less than a yard of the furze bush, from which I took the 
specimen now on the table. 
There could be no doubt that the blossoms in question had been ex¬ 
cised from the heath by the tendrils of the Dodder, and so completely 
were they incorporated that they did not miss their removal from the 
parent bush, but appeared to be nourished by the juices of the intrusive 
plant, and thus presented the novel feature of being a parasite in turn 
upon the true parasite which had borne them off. 
The most curious part of the circumstance was that the Dodder, 
having excised the two pretty heath flowers, went forward on its rambles, 
throwing its lasso round a spray of the furze bush, striking into it fresh 
rootlets to support itself on its devious way, carrying intact its precious 
burden through the thorny maze. 
I submit the fact for the consideration of the Society, leaving it for 
them to determine the interesting question as to whether the heath 
flowers were in reality nourished and bloomed by the juices of the Dodder, 
or only kept alive by the moisture of its succulent tendrils. 
