308 Mr. Griffith on the Root-Parasites re/erred to Rhizanthese, 



phyte and Mystropetalum from that I have given above as the general charac- ' 

 teristic. However much the component parts of these may be considered to 

 resemble the spores of Acotyledonous plants, I do not attach any particular 

 importance to it. For independently of errors of observation, from a defective 

 series of specimens or other causes, the two genera are of widely different 

 organization ; and though one of them has appeared to me deficient in an 

 ovulum, the other {Sarcophyte) has appeared to me in this respect analogous 

 to Balanophora, which yet presented a decided form of the homogeneous 

 acotyledonous embryo. 



Again, such terras as " semina aembrya polyspora," and " seeds having no 

 embryo, but consisting of a homogeneous sporuliferous mass*,'' are in an- 

 other and a more important view not applicable to all these so-called Rhi- 

 zanthece. They cannot, for instance, be applied with any accuracy to the 

 seeds of Rafflesia, Sapria, Cytinus and Hydnora, which throughout their 

 earlier periods are altogether similar to ordinary ovula. So much so, that 

 from his observations on the ovulum of RaJjUesia, extended generally to Phae- 

 nogamous plants, Mr, Brown deduced his curious remarks upon a most mi- 

 nute point, the origin of the integumentst- 



To come properly, if definitions are to be trusted, under the term spore, it 

 is required that germination take place from an indeterminate point. And to 

 attach this condition to development from true ovula, is to negative one of 

 the most constant rules connected with seeds, viz. the relation of particular 

 and definite parts of the embryo to particular parts of the seed. 



Such of the plants referred to Rhizanthece that I have been able to examine 

 which do not present this, as it appears to me, insurmountable objection, are 

 Balanophora, Sarcophyte and Mystropetalum ; in the two former of which the 

 ovula may be assumed as consisting of simple sacs, without any integument 

 or definable punctum, presenting perhaps something analogous to the reduc- 

 tion of the parts of the ovulum of Loranthacece. 



Thus it may I think be stated, that in the Rhizanthece of Endlicher and 

 Lindley there are, so far as we yet know, two types of formation of the embryo ; 



* Both these definitions include contradictory terms. Compare definitions 464, 568, 581 and 590, 

 of Lindley's ' Elements.' 



t Note sur la fleur femelle etc. du Rafflesia, Ann. des Sc. Nat., 2nde s^rie, vol. i. p. 370. 



