98 Mr. Gnirrrrü on the Indian Species of Balanophora, 
The female spike to the naked eye has a papillose and a subverrucose 
appearance; under an ordinary magnifier it appears covered with truncate; 
areolate, opake bodies, separated from each other by what appear to be hairs. 
The truncate areolate bodies will be found on examination to terminate small 
branches of the spike, on which are arranged (and perhaps exclusively so) 
the pistilla or female flowers, the styloid terminations of which are the hairs 
alluded to. 
These pistilla are generally stalked, and appear to be entirely composed of 
cellular tissue, every cell containing a nucleus. The ovarium is generally 
ovate, and presents externally the appearance of having a cavity containing a 
nucleus. This would seem to be its true structure, judging from Bal. polyan- 
dra. It is gradually attenuated into a style, which, in its earlier stages at least, 
is closed at the apex, and does not present any surface like that of an ordi- 
nary stigma. "The tissue before fecundation is transparent and uncoloured ; 
subsequently to that, the style becomes more or less, often completely, ob- 
scured by brown colour. | 
The ovulum, which was only observed in Bal. polyandra, and probably in 
its impregnated state, appeared to be pendulous from the apex of the cavity 
of the ovarium ; its constitution was essentially similar to that of the matured 
embryo. Of its earlier stages I have no knowledge. 
The pistilla at very early periods are mere ovato-conical extensions of the 
surface of the spike round the bases of la 
which subsequently form the receptacles. 
There is very little difference beyond discoloration and a brittleness of 
tissue between the pistilla of the other species and the fruits of Bal. picta, in 
which alone 1 have observed them in their seemingly ripe state ; they have 
nearly the same size and precisely the same disposition. 
The embryo in this species appeared to be free; it is a cellular, undivided, 
albuminous-looking body, of a fleshy, waxy substance ; the cells which com- 
pae It are rendered opake by grumous, molecular and oleaginous matter, 
— by pressure may be made to escape into the fluid of the field of the 
bodies of unequal size, which, as I have 
| be mi spores or grains of pollen. 
Oss. IIL.— The most remarkable parts of the structure of this genus ap- 
rger extensions of the same surface, 
