DESCRIPTION OF HYOBANCHE. 143 
finally deliquescing ! Seeds invested with a fleshy cellular 
arillus (as in the Order) globose, very minute. Harvey. 
HYOBANCHE SANGUINEA. Linn. Mant. p. 253. Thunb. 
Fl. Cap. (ed. Schult.) p. 488. Harv. Gen. of S, Afr. Pl. 
p. 249. 
OnonawcHE MaunrTANICA. Pet. Gen. t. 37, f. 4. 
Has. Parasitical on various roots, and found in several 
parts of the flats at the Cape of Good Hope, in the months 
of September and October. 
The only species of the genus. A curious fleshy plant. 
Stem thick, a foot or more in length, but the greater part 
buried underground, closely covered with ovate appressed ` 
scales. Spike of flowers dense, ovate. Whole plant of a 
more or less intense carmine, and thickly clothed with short 
woolly hairs. This genus is usually placed in Orobanchee, 
but the structure of the ovary is so completely analagous to 
that of Harveya, which Sir W. J. Hooker has referred to the 
Scrophularine, that I do not see how they can be separated. 
It is true that the placentze, strictly speaking, are here formed 
from the introflexed margins of the valves; but then they 
meet in the centre of the capsule, and are firmly united to- 
gether into one central piece; a line at right angles with the 
dissepiment merely remaining to mark where the surfaces 
coalesce, But after all, the distinctions between parietal and 
central placentz, appear very trifling, as, theoretically, all 
placentz have the same origin; and a central placenta only 
differs from a parietal in the greater degree of inflexion of 
the margins of the carpel. Had not a celebrated Botanist* 
lately declared that the Orobanchee were more nearly allied 
to the Gentiane than to the Serophularine, Y should have 
been inclined to have combined them with the latter Order, 
and to have considered the passage easy and natural, through 
the genera Hyobanche, Harveya, Aulaya, and Alectra.—Harv. 
in “ Gen. of S. Afr. PI? | 
* Professor Lindley at the Meeting of the British Association, Liverpool, 
1837, as reported in the Liverpool Mercury, Sept. 22. 
