Ann Jerome, age 14 of Prescott, Arizona, for her question:

WHAT IS A SAPROPHYTE?

A saprophyte is a living thing that must get its food from dead plants or animals. The saprophytes are chiefly plants that lack the green substance chlorophyll.

Plants with chlorophyll can manufacture their food from water and the carbon dioxide of the air, by the process of photosynthesis.

Saprophytes must depend on food that has already been made by some other living thing.

The best known saprophytes are the plants known as fungi. They include mushrooms, molds, mildew and bacteria. Partial saprophytes may live part of their lives on dead plants and animals, and part on living plants and animals.

Some bacteria are partial saprophytes.

Animals or plants that live on living organisms are called parasites.

Certain saprophytic fungi, such as the molds, are quite harmful and destructive to the plants they infest.