Dodder on heather and gorse.
One day, far out on the moors, Flora introduced them to a curious parasitic plant, showing them ‘a patch of heather which, from some short distance, looked stunted and blighted and had a reddish tinge. When closely examined, every individual plant was seen to be netted and dragged down to earth by thin, red, threadlike runners.’ The plant is called dodder, and Flora declared that, ‘if she were a novelist, she would write a book with that title. It would be the story of a man or woman - she thought a woman - of fine, sensitive nature, bound by some tie - probably marriage - to one of a nature which was strong, coarse and encroaching, and would tell how in time the heather person shrank and withered, while the dodder one fattened and prospered.’