OF BALANOPHOREÆ. 53 
probable that his specimens were most imperfect, and perhaps covered with mould. The 
museum at Kew is indebted to Prof. de Vriese of Leyden for beautiful Javanese specimens 
of both sexes, which being authentically named, enabled me to recognize Junghuhn’s 
plant as identical with the Himalayan and Khasian one; and which, making allowance 
for the absence of male flowers, and for his erroneous description of the females, is also 
identical with the Phæocordylis of Griffith, gathered at the same spot in the Khasia 
Mountains where Dr. Thomson and I procured an abundant supply of specimens. 
Rhopalocnemis is by far the largest and the handsomest of the Helosideæ, and it is the 
only one which I have had an opportunity of examining in a living state; it is most 
closely allied to Corynæa, differing in the presence of a volva and in the unisexual capi- 
tula. It grows gregariously, in shady mountain woods, its large heads of a pale yellow- 
brown colour alone appearing above ground: it is of a firm, fleshy consistence, perfectly 
inodorous even when decaying. I have vainly tried to induce the ripe seeds to germinate, 
and have examined many hundreds in the fruitless attempt to discover any embryo in the 
mass filling the whole cavity of the seed. During the shedding of the fruit, the capitula 
(of gathered specimens) copiously exuded a transparent sugary fluid, but I have never 
observed this on the living plant: it is no doubt analogous to the fluid described by 
Weddell as bathing the capitula of some Balanophoreæ, and supposed by that author to 
be of use in the operation of fecundation. , 
The rhizome varies from the size of an egg to that of the human head, and is supplied 
internally with many stout woody branches, which appear continuous with the wood of 
. the rootstock, and which upon maceration are found to send continuous bundles to the 
top of the capitulum. The peduncles are solitary, or many together on large rhizomes, 
and are enveloped at the base by a hard, fleshy, erect, cylindrical volva, 3-2 inches high ; 
they vary in length from 2 to 6 inches, and in ‘diameter from } to 2 inches; they are 
altogether naked below, but in the upper part are covered to a greater or less distance 
below the capitulum with fleshy, patent, and somewhat recurved scales, 4 inch long, 
which appear to be persistent, and to occur chiefly on the male plants. The hexagonal 
fleshy scales which cover the whole capitulum are altogether similar to those of Helosis ; 
as are the female perianths to those of Corynæa, and the males to those of Helosis. —— 
In flowering, both males and females expand at the same time, throwing off their 
cohering bracteal scales in large masses, and exposing a velvety pile of styles, and a 
dense mass of subjacent articulate threads. There are several crops of male flowers, 
which expand successively ; and in the dense humid calm woods in which this genus grows, 
insect agency is probably necessary to impregnation. During the ripening of the fruit, 
d from the swelling of the masses answering 
the surface of the capitulum becomes areolate 
to an obscure lobing of that organ, and at first externally defined by one of the fallen 
bract-scales, and internally by a vascular bundle from the- plexus of vessels within the 
capitulum. ; ee: 
My examination of living specimens, both in the Khasia Mountains E ii on , ied 
to no results which may not as well be obtained from those preserved in spirits, for the 
sphacelation and browning of the cut surfaces were SO instantaneous, that I had to put 
the sections in spirits as soon as made. Å careful study of the ovule and seed at all 
