filament which grows down into the ground. Should this meet with a root of its host-plant, it adheres to it closely, and grows into a swollen knob at the point of attachment, which when mature sends up the flowering stem already described. Should a suitable root not be met with, the filament withers away and dies as soon as it has exhausted the small amount of reserve food stored in the seed. A parasite of a less sedentary habit, to be found in spring in our copses and hedgerows, is the Toothwort (_Lathræa Squamaria_). This curious plant has underground creeping stems clothed with whitish, tooth-like, fleshy scales (curiously modified leaves). In autumn and winter the stems lie dormant. In spring they send out delicate roots which attach themselves to the roots of trees of various kinds and suck nourishment from them, with the aid of which the plant sends up into the air fleshy cream-coloured stems bearing many drooping flowers of the same hue, the structure of which shows that the plant is closely allied to the Broomrapes. The Toothwort is a very harmless parasite, and the species of Broomrape also, though sometimes abundant on Clover, etc., do not do much damage; but the same cannot be said for the Dodders (_Cuscuta_), one of which is parasitic on Flax, another on Clover, and so on. These are little annual plants whose seeds lie dormant in the soil throughout the winter and well into the spring. Then the young plant, which has remained coiled up inside this seed like a spring, pushes forth in the form of a tiny thread. While one extremity fastens itself to the soil, the other rises up into the air, and its point slowly revolves. Should it come in contact with a living stem of a suitable plant, it attaches itself to it by means of disc-like suckers, penetrates the tissues of its victim, draws out nourishment, and, growing rapidly, spreads from plant to plant, taking a couple of close turns round each stem after the manner of a lasso, and then sending in rootlets from the attaching disc, and sucking the life out of each as it goes. It has no roots, no leaves, no chlorophyll, being of a red or yellow tint, and is entirely dependent for its nourishment on the plants which it attacks. In course of time--about August--an abundance of pretty little waxy-white flowers are produced, which produce the next year’s supply of seed. A few seedlings of Dodder, developing under suitable conditions, will form a colony which is capable in its few months of life of sweeping over a large area, wrecking the vegetation on which it has battened.