' ^ . ‘ DR. J.D. HOOKER ON THE STRUCTURE AND 
Columbia the medullary system is much more utricular, lax, and membranous; but there « 
are so many modifications of all these tissues in different specimens of the same species 
and parts of the same specimen, that it would be useless to multiply descriptions of them. — 
In all the other Helosideæ the same vessels are very conspicuous; but owing to the - 
form of the rhizome they are confused in arrangement and variable in amount, frequently 1 
presenting no system whatever. i 
Langsdorffia presents the same exogenous arrangement in its rhizome as Helosis, but | 
its axis (pith) is formed wholly of long wood-tubes (Plate II. figs. 5 & 6): its tissues are — 
more particularly described under the remarks on the genus itself; where also its resem- 1 
blance to the Indian Balanophoreæ in its waxy cell-contents is noticed. 
Cynomorium has a rhizome which I have never seen to branch, though luxuriant speci- - 
mens probably do so. The fusiform axis at the base of the peduncle, which is probably — 
not the rhizome, but only the base of the peduncle, presents in a transverse section - 
many small, unsymmetrieally disposed vascular fascicles: each of these is composed of— 
l. towards the axis a bundle of delicate, white, cylindrical and angular, barred or scala- — 
riform vessels, or long polygonal cells with variously marked faces:—2. externally to - 
this is a rather broad mass of vertically elongated oblong cells, of equal length; with — 
blunt superimposed extremities, which all meet at the same height; giving this tissue a 
transversely marked appearance. | 
The tissues of Sarcophyte and Mystropetalon present nothing remarkable. EG 
Cellular tissue.—This has been extremely well described in the Java species, by Geeppert, | 
of whose remarks the figures of B. involucrata (Plate IV. figs. 7, 8, &c.) are illustrative. — 
The walls of the cells are almost invariably dotted; in some cases owing to pores, and in | 
others to deposits of wax and chlorophyll. Very frequently (and always in young speci- 1 
mens) each cell presents a conspicuous cytoblast, firmly adherent to a discoid spot. At - 
Plate IV. fig. 11. are seen some of the waxy contents of the cells, in the shape of spherical. 1 
or rounded nuclei of various sizes; full of utricles, which appear to burst, and scatter their - 
granular contents within the cell, which is seen ruptured in fig. 13. b 
The wax of Langsdorffia and Balanophora is replaced in most of the other genera by : 
starch-grains: these are especially abundant in Sarcophyte, Oynomorium and Lopho- | 
phytum, which are in consequence eaten, as are other species occasionally*. The fluids . 
of most of the species are colourless or pale yellow; those of the Indian Balanophore are | 
quite white, and often very viscid. b 
I have never observed the appearance of the red cortical layer of the bark of the root, - 
which Gæppert describes as ascending with and surrounding the vascular bundles of the | 
rhizome in Balanophora, and which, he adds, contains tannin: it is, however, very con- | 
spicuous in Langsdorfia, and probably developed more or less in many other species. I 
have not found the raphides which he describes in the J avanese B. alutacea. | 
Unger calls the elongated parenchyma-cells with cytoblasts, « 
and notices their similarity to vessels that occur in Filices ; and 
affinity between Balanophoreæ and Acrogens. Gæppert also, 
‘-* A chemical analysis of this wax is 
the wax of Ceroæylon andicola. . 
pseudo-pleurenchyma,” - 
he hence alludes to an 
considering that the cellular — 
given by Gæppert, who ealls it Balanophorine, and observes that it resembles — 
