OF BALANOPHOREÆ. 37 
III. SARCOPHYTE, Sparrmann. 
(Tas. I. C.) 
1. SARCOPHYTE SANGUINEA, Sparrm. in Act. Holm. xxxvii. p. 300. t. 7; Schott & Endl. 
Melet. Bot. p.11; Griffith, Linn. Soc. Trans. xix. p. 339; Unger, Ann. Wien. Mus. 
ii. t. 5. f. 28; Weddell in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 3. p. 14. t. 10. f. 34-38. 
Ichthyosma Wehdemanni, Schlecht. in Linnæa, ii. 671. t. 8. 
Hab. Africå Australi, ad radices Ekebergie prope Grahams-town (Wehdemann, &c.). Ad radices Acaciæ 
Capensis, Quagga's Flat, Uitenhage (Zeyher /). 
My observations on this remarkable plant chiefly refer to two points: the structure of 
the anther, and the relation of the genus to other Balanophoreæ, in both which I differ 
from Mr. Griffith. 
The anther is rightly described by Endlicher as consisting of a solid capitate body, 
containing many loculi filled with pollen. The contracted persistent septa between these 
loculi have been mistaken by Griffith for pedicelled anthers, which he describes as forming 
_ together a “ caput antherarum,” crowning a common peduncle, which rises from the axil 
ofa bract. On the contrary, I find that the anther* contains about fifteen to twenty cells 
of very variable size, radiating from a cellular axis: a transverse section shows about twelve 
such cells symmetrically disposed round the apex of the filament; and a vertical one 
exhibits about eight, which radiate from the blunt summit of the filament, and of which 
the outermost are very small. At a very early period the septa consist of three tissues : 
an inner cellular not materially different from that of the filament, from which, however, 
it is separated by a broad dark line; this is lined by a delicate hyaline endothecial coat, 
and upon this is a mass of matted filaments of excessive tenuity and pulpy nature pre- 
cisely similar to the anther-lining of PAyllocoryne, &c., amongst which the pollen-grains 
nestle. Each cell is distended with spherical pollen-grains. 
I have not observed the circumscissal dehiscence of the outer membrane described by 
Endlicher, and which was apparently suggested to that author by the appearance of an 
annulus at the base of the dehisced anther; as on the contrary the anther dehisces by 
the disruption of the membrane over each loculus, in a manner quite analogous to that of 
the apices of the anthers of Rhopalocnemis, Helosis, and Corynæa, on the one hand, and 
of Balanophora polyandra, &c., on the other; and is an instance of the general tendency 
to dehiscence by irregular disruption of the anther-wall, which prevails throughout the 
Order. I have not been able at any period of its growth to reduce the anther to the 
ordinary 4-locular type; the pollen being developed, as in Viscum and various Rhizo- 
phoræ, simultaneously in many independent points of the epithelium: that these points 
originated along definite lines, answering to the position of anther-cells of the ordinary 
type, can therefore only be assumed. 
From the above it is evident that Griffith is perfectly correct in insisting (J. c. p. 339) 
that a continuous solid tissue must exist between the cells of the anther, if it be assumed 
that these cells are not separate anthers. 
In assuming that the filaments of Sarcophyte are axillary to the lobes of the perianth 
* A correct section of the anther is given in Unger's paper; Ann. Wien. Mus. l c. t. 7. fig. 48. 
