68 



Botany, 



and it is about a foot from the insertion of the one petal to the opposite 

 one ; what is considered the nectarium (6) would hold 12 pints; the pistils. 



which are abortive {fig. 37. d\ are as large as cows' horns, and the weight 

 of the whole is calculated to be about 15 lbs. The flower, fully blown, 

 was discovered in a jungle, growing close to the ground under the bushes, 

 with a swarm of flies hovering over the nectary, and apparently laying 

 their eggs in its substance. The colour of the five petals is a brick red, 

 •covered with protuberances of a yellowish white. The smell is that of 

 tainted beef. The structure of Rafflesia is too imperfectly known to admit 

 of determining its place in the natural system; but Mr. Brown, from 

 whose learned paper on the subject, in the Linnean transactions, this notice 

 is taken, is inclined to think it will be found to approach either to Asarinae 

 or Passifloreae. Its first appearance is that of a round knob {fig. 58.) pro- 

 ceeding from a crack or hollow in the 

 stem or root. This knob, when cut 

 through, exhibits the infant flower en- 

 veloped in numerous bracteal sheaths, 

 which successively open and wither away 

 as the flower enlarges, until, at the time 

 of full expansion {fig.'51.), there are but 

 a very few remaining, which have some- 

 what the appearance of a broken calyx. 

 {fig. 37. c.) It takes three months from 

 the first appearance of the bud to the 

 full expansion of the flower. The fruit has not yet been seen by botanists, 

 but is said by the natives, to be a many-seeded berry. The female flower 

 differs little in appearance from the male, further than being without the 

 anthers {fig. 37. e) of the latter. In Mr. Brown's observations on Rafllesia, 

 he observes, that it is not common for parasite plants to fix indiscriminately 

 on the roots or branches of their stocks, as is supposed to be the case with 

 Rafflesia, and that " plants parasitic on roots, are chiefly distinguishable by 

 the imperfect developement of their leaves, and the entire absence of green 

 colour ; that their seeds are small, and their embryo not only minute, but 

 apparently imperfectly developed." The modes of union between a para- 

 site and its supporter or stock, vary in different genera and species of this 

 class of vegetables. Some, as the mistletoe and Rafflesia, depend on the 

 stock for nourishment during the whole of their existence ; others, as the 

 common broom rape, are originated in the soil, and afterwards, when they 

 have attached themselves to their stock, the original roots die ; other pa- 

 rasites, again, are originated on the stock, and in their more advanced state 

 produee roots of their own. In some cases the nature of the connection 



