and on a new Genus of the Family Balanophoreae. 95 



Obs. I. — I have experienced considerable doubt in referring these plants to 

 Balanophora. 



In all my notes, especially those made while associated with Dr. Wallich, 

 during the Tea Deputation into Upper Assam, I have considered them, from 

 that botanist's suggestions, to be species of his Sarcocordylis, rather than of 

 Balanophora. 



In M. Endlicher s ' Genera Plantarum,' the character of Balanophora, with 

 the exception perhaps of that of the female, seems considerably different from 

 that of the plants in question, which is rather that oi Cijnopsole*; but that 

 genus, although its female flowers would seem to have been unknown, is 

 placed in a tribe characterized by having a bilocular ovarium! Indeed, up 

 to the time of my reaching the Botanic Gardens, I had no grounds whatever 

 for referring these plants to Balanophora, except a figure in Dr. Royle's ' lUus- 

 trationsf,' which is stated to represent the Bal. dioica of Mr. Robert Brown |, 

 a Nepalese plant referred by him to Balanophora in his memoir on Rafflesia^. 

 My doubts, however, did not entirely end here; for in Forster's figure oi Bat. 

 fungosa, on which he founded the genus, the spikes are represented as bear- 

 ing male flowers below and female above, a remarkable circumstance ; the 

 Veceptacles would also appear to bear pistilla over their whole surface. Then 

 again, so late as 1838, Dr. Walker Arnott represents a plant in Hooker's 

 ' Icones Plantarum,' which, excepting the apparent want of bractese to the 

 male flowers, and the appearance of the styles, perhaps to be explained by the 

 adherence of pollen-grains, is evidently a congener of Mr. Brown's Bal. dioica, 

 and of the species I have endeavoured to illustrate. This Dr. Arnott makes a 

 Langsdorffia, a genus which appears to me sufficiently distinct from the Bala- 

 nophora of Forster. 



I have no later information regarding these plants, although probably Dr. 

 Arnott has elucidated them in the ' Annals of Natural History.' I believe 



apparently not distinct from Bat. globosa, Jungh. iu Nov. Act. Acad. Nat. Cur. vol. xviii. suppl. 1. 

 p. 210. t. 2 ; Bal. Indica, Herb. Wight (illustrated by Dr. Arnott in Sir W. J. Hooker's ' Icones Plan- 

 tarum,' t. 205-6, and in the ' Annals of Natural History,' vol. ii. p. 36), is distinct from any other pub- 

 lished species; and Bal. typhina. Wall. List, no. 7248, appears to be identical with Bal. picta, GrifF., 

 above characterized. — Secb. 



* Genera Plantarum, 74. no. 719. f Illustrations of Botany, &c. t. 99 or 78 a. 



X Illustrations of Botany, &c. p. 330. § Linn. Trans, xiii. p. 227, in a note. 



