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XXVII. On the Root-Parasites referred by Authors to Rhizantheee ; and on 

 various Plants related to them. By WiLLrAM Griffith, Estj., F.L.S. 



Read November 7tli and 2151, and December 5th, 1843; February 20th, March 5th, June 4th and 



18th, 1844. 



§ 1 . An attempt to analyse Rhizantkew. 



L HAVE been urged to present this paper to the Society by the hope of 

 placing before the eyes of botanists evidence that, in the construction of the 

 group called Rhizanthew, whatever its rank may be, a remarkable diversity of 

 characters has been sacrificed to an appearance resulting from parasitism on 

 roots, and to an assumed absence of any ordinary form of vegetable embryo. 



For this reason I have multiplied, perhaps unnecessarily, the details ; the 

 same reason will I hope excuse me for having considered, in one article, 

 plants belonging in my opinion to widely different series. 



Whether the evidence herein given is sufficient to cause the dismemberment 

 of the group in question is a matter that must be determined by others ; but 

 every botanist must at least bear in mind, that the Magister Scientice has 

 unequivocally declared that Raffiesiacece and Cytinece are closely related to 

 Asarinece, and that the whole bearing of his observations on the female flower 

 and fruit of Rafflesia* is strongly subversive of the two principal points on 

 which Rhizanthea; have been founded. Moreover, in none of his writings, 

 that I have access to, has Mr. Robert Brown alluded to any affinity, beyond 

 such as may arise from parasitical attachments, between Rafflesiacex and 

 any other family of Rhizanthsf, except Cytiiiece. 



I have no knowledge of the writings of any other botanists who may have 

 objected to the adoption of the group in question. Messrs. Wight and Arnott 



* Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 2nde serie, .lain 1834, p. 369. 

 t Linn. Trans, vol. xiii. p. 224. 



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