One of the lowest groups of plants, known as the fungi, have cultivated most completely the habit of dependence on other organisms. They attack both plants and animals, and are often exceedingly destructive. Among the better known of these parasites are the rusts, which attack and destroy many of our most useful crops. To the fungi there also belong the well-known bacteria, which are the cause of numerous contagious diseases both among plants and animals. It will be observed that these parasites are using exactly the same sort of food as do the carnivorous plants. This does not appear so striking in this case, simply because the attacking plants are so much smaller than the organisms attacked that they do not seem to capture them, although they are often none the less effective in destroying them. John Merle Coulter. MAPLE LEAVES. October turned my maple's leaves to gold; The most are gone now; here and there one lingers; Soon these will slip from out the twig's weak hold, Like coins between a dying miser's fingers. Thomas Bailey Aldrich. [Illustration: MANDRAKE. FROM KOEHLER'S MEDICINAL PFLANZEN. CHICAGO: A. W. MUMFORD PUBLISHER.] Description of Plate.--A, B, parts of the plant about natural size; 1, flower bud; 2, flower; 3, stamens; 4, ovary; 5, fruit; 6, seed coat; 7, seed. MAY-APPLE. (_Podophyllum peltatum L._) "The blushing peach and glossy plum there lies, And with the _mandrake_ tempt your hands and eyes." --Quoted in _Tuckerman's America, p. 33_. The may-apple is a small perennial herb with long root-stocks or underground stems (rhizomes), a native of the United States and Canada, growing in rather moist woodlands. The rhizomes attain a length of about twelve feet; they are sparingly branched with comparatively few roots at the nodes. Upon closer inspection one may notice the leaf scars and stem scars. Early in the spring the bud situated at the anterior end of the root-stock or rhizome, develops and sends up a stem upon which the leaves and flower are situated. The entire plant attains a height of about twelve inches. The leaves are large, peltate (from pelta, a small shield), margin deeply from five to nine lobed, lobes pendant thus giving the leaf a semblance to an umbrella. It is remarkable that the flowerless plants have only one leaf, while the flowering specimens always have two, which are opposite upon the stem apex, carrying the flower in the bifurcation as shown in the illustration.