AFFINITIES OF BALANOPHOREÆ. 5 
novam et matricis nature alienam prolem consumuntur * * *." These theories have 
been well combated by Gæppert, who adduces the fact of the same species of Balanophora 
growing indifferently on various plants of very different natural families, as being quite 
opposed to them; to which may be added, that they have an independently developed 
vascular system of their own, which only in some species blends with that of the root; 
and that they are propagated by seeds. 
Griffith does not seem to have traced the vascular bundles of the root into the peduncle 
of the parasite; for in his valuable paper on .Balanophora (Linn. Soc. Trans. xx. p. 96), he 
describes them all as rising from the root into the rhizome, and terminating abruptly in 
the axis, towards its periphery : this well describes the appearance of those bundles which 
form the main body of the parasite; and they may be seen in the vertical section given 
in Plate IV. fig. 20, radiating in a fan-like manner from the root, and terminating in 
broad truncate masses towards the circumference of the rhizome. In a transverse section 
again (fig. 19) of a young, symmetrically formed, unbranched rhizome, with one peduncle, 
the vascular bundles will be found to be much more regularly disposed round a cellular 
axis, and separated by broad rays of cellular tissue. 
Gæppert and Unger both consider that there is a double vascular system in the parasite ; 
the one given off by the root on which it grows, and the other confined exclusively to the 
peduncle and its appendages, though passing downwards through the axis of the rhizome 
to within a very short distance of the base of the parasite, and there terminating abruptly. 
The result of my own observations on live plants of Rhopalocnemis (and which were 
verified by Dr. Thomson), is that the vascular bundles of the peduncle are so intimately 
united with those of the rhizome towards the base of the latter, that they are organically 
one and the same tissue. In illustration of this I will refer to Plate IV. fig. 22, as being 
taken from one of the simplest and most symmetrical forms presented by a Balanophora : 
in this the letter a indicates the union of the vascular bundles of the peduncle and rhizome. 
Of Rhopalocnemis and Balanophora dioica Y macerated many specimens in all stages of 
growth, some being in ripe fruit, when the vascular bundles have most consistence; and I 
never failed in dissecting them out in continuous masses from the bases of the apparent 
root-branches in the rhizome to the capitulum itself. 
The vascular branches that connect the root with the rhizome of the parasite, are 
altogether analogous to those found in the exostoses of DeCandolle on the roots of various 
. Leguminous plants; and especially such as have been pointed out to me by Prof. Henslow 
as being frequent on the roots of Laburnum*. 
The root itself of the plant on which B. fungosa grows, has no pith (Plate VIII. fig. 15); 
but the branches which it appears to send into the parasite, enclose a pith (figs. 10 & 11 a), 
and the wedges of wood of which these branches are composed become broken up at a 
distance from the base of the rhizome (fig. 11 55) ; the branches terminate in cylindrical 
masses of cellular tissue, enclosing a few imperfect spiral or barred vessels in their axis. 
* These latter are coralloid masses, consisting of a cortical and woody system, the latter provided with obscure 
medullary rays: as their distance from the root is increased, their branches become simpler in structure, being merely 
cellular cylinders with a vascular axis or core, the latter consisting of a little pleurenchyma and very imperfectly 
developed annular and other vessels. 
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