240 Mr. Brown on the Female Flower and Fruit of Rafflesia Arnoldi, 



SUPPLEMENT. 



To render the account of Rafflesia Arnoldi more complete, I shall add the 



distinguishing characters of the order, tribes, genera and species of Raf- 



flesiacea? with which I am acquainted. These characters, which form the 



chief part of the present supplement, as well as the notes to the original 



communication, have been written since November last. 



The paper itself is printed as it was read in June 1834, a few very slight 

 alterations, and those chiefly verbal, excepted*. 



* The following brief abstract was published in the Philosophical Magazine for July 1834 : — 



" Linnean Society. 



" June 17.— A paper was read ' On the Female Flower and Fruit of Rafflesia, with Observations on 

 its Affinities, and on the Structure of Hydnora.' By Robert Brown, Esq., V.P.L.S. 



" The author's principal object in this paper is to complete his account of Rafflesia Arnoldi, the male 

 flower of which he described in a former communication, published in the 13th volume of the Society's 

 Transactions ; and, in connection with the question of its place in a natural arrangement, he introduces 

 a more detailed description and figures of Hydnora africana, than have hitherto been given. The 

 drawings of Rafflesia which accompany the paper are by Francis Bauer, Esq., and those of Hydnora 

 by the late Mr. Ferdinand Bauer. 



" From a comparison of Rafflesia with Hydnora and Cytinus, he is confirmed in the opinion expressed 

 m his former paper, but founded on less satisfactory evidence, that these three genera, (to which Brug- 

 mansta of Blume is now to be added,) notwithstanding several remarkable peculiarities in each, may 

 all be referred to the same natural family; and this family, named by him Rafflesiacex, he continues 

 to regard as being most nearly allied to Asarina. 



" He does not, however, admit an arrangement lately proposed by M. Endlicher, and adopted by 

 Mr Lmdley, by whom these genera are included in the same natural class with Balanophorece of 

 Riehard; an approximation founded on their agreement in the structure of embryo, and on the 

 assumed absence of spiral vessels. On this subject he remarks, that in having a homogeneous or 

 acotyledonous embryo, they essentially accord, not only with many other plants, parasitical on roots, 

 which it has never been proposed to unite with them, as Orobanche, &c, but also with Orchidece, their 



association with which would hp «H1I «,««, j • * . ■ ... 



... . Q De stl]I more Paradoxical. And with respect to the supposed peculiarity 



in their vascuhar structure, he states that he has found spiral vessels not only in Rafflesia, (in which he 

 had formerly denied the. existence,) and in Hydnora and Cytinus, but likewise in all the Balanophorece 



LanaZ* 7' P T CUkrly C " mm0rimi and ***• as Dr - ™ Martins had long since done in 

 Langsdorfia, and Professor Meyer very recently in Hydnora. 



In lus observations on the ovulum of Rafflesia, he gives a view of its early stages of development, 



