1103. Vegetable soils are such as are formed of vegetating or decayed plants themselves, to some of which the seeds of certain other plants are found to adhere, as being the only soil fitted to their germination and developement. The plants springing from them are denominated parasitical, as being plants that will vegetate neither in the water nor earth, but on certain other plants, to which they attach themselves by means of roots that penetrate the bark, and from the juices of which they do often, though not always, derive their support. This last circumstance constitutes the ground of a subdivision of parasitical plants, into such as adhere to the dead or inert parts of other plants (these are termed epiphytes); and such as adhere to living plants, and feed on their juices.
