Flowering Season - June-October.
Distribution - Florida and Arizona, far northward into British
Possessions. Europe and Asia.
Branded a sinner, through its loss of leaves and honest green
coloring matter (chlorophyll), the pine sap stands among the
disreputable 'gang' of thieves that includes its next of kin the
Indian-pipe, the broom-rape, dodder, coral-root, and beech-drops
(q.v.). Degenerates like these, although members of highly
respectable, industrious, virtuous families, would appear to be
as low in the vegetable kingdom as any fungus, were it not for
the flowers they still bear. Petty larceny, no greater than the
foxglove's at first, then greater and greater thefts, finally
lead to ruin, until the pine-sap parasite either sucks its food
from the roots of the trees under which it takes up its abode, or
absorbs, like a ghoulish saprophyte, the products of vegetable
decay. A plant that does not manufacture its own dinner has no
need of chlorophyll and leaves, for assimilation of crude food
can take place only in those cells which contain the vital green.
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