. Dodder. Four males, two females. This parasite plant
(the seed splitting without cotyledons), protrudes a spiral body, and not
endeavouring to root itself in the earth ascends the vegetables in its
vicinity, spirally W.S.E. or contrary to the movement of the sun;
and absorbs its nourishment by vessels apparently inserted into its
supporters. It bears no leaves, except here and there a scale, very
small, membranous, and close under the branch. Lin. Spec. Plant. edit. a
Reichard. Vol. I. p. 352. The Rev. T. Martyn, in his elegant letters on
botany, adds, that, not content with support, where it lays hold, there
it draws its nourishment; and at length, in gratitude for all this,
strangles its entertainer. Let. xv. A contest for air and light obtains
throughout the whole vegetable world; shrubs rise above herbs; and, by
precluding the air and light from them, injure or destroy them; trees
suffocate or incommode shrubs; the parasite climbing plants, as Ivy,
Clematis, incommode the taller trees; and other parasites, which exist
without having roots on the ground, as Misletoe, Tillandsia, Epidendrum,
and the mosses and funguses, incommode them all.

Some of the plants with voluble stems ascend other plants spirally
east-south-west, as Humulus, Hop, Lonicera, Honey-suckle, Tamus,
black Bryony, Helxine. Others turn their spiral stems west-south-east, as
Convolvulus, Corn-bind, Phaseolus, Kidney-bean, Basella, Cynanche,
Euphorbia, Eupatorium. The proximate or final causes of this difference
have not been investigated. Other plants are furnished with tendrils for
the purpose of climbing: if the tendril meets with nothing to lay hold of
in its first revolution, it makes another revolution; and so on till it
wraps itself quite up like a cork-screw; hence, to a careless observer,
it appears to move gradually backwards and forwards, being seen sometimes
pointing eastward and sometimes westward. One of the Indian grasses,
Panicum arborescens, whose stem is no thicker than a goose-quill, rises
as high as the tallest trees in this contest for light and air. Spec.
Plant a Reichard, Vol. I. p. 161. The tops of many climbing plants are
tender from their quick growth; and, when deprived of their acrimony by
boiling, are an agreeable article of food. The Hop-tops are in common
use. I have eaten the tops of white Bryony, Bryonia alba, and found them
nearly as grateful as Asparagus, and think this plant might be profitably
cultivated as an ear