1844.] Linnean Society. 217 



Planta parasitica, habitu Rafflesise. Flos magnus, carnis colore, odore 

 putrido. 



SapRIA HlMALAYANA. 



Hab. in Jugi Himalayani Montibus Mishmee Assamise Superioris ad lat. 

 Bor. 27° 50', long. Orient. 96° 27', altit. pedes 3000—5000. 



The description of this plant is accompanied by observations on 

 its mode of parasitism, on its vascular structure, on the plicae of the 

 inside of the tube of the perianthium (which the author suggests may 

 perhaps be considered to represent a second series of stamina), on 

 the inner membrane of the cells of the anthers, on the obstacles to 

 independent impregnation, and on the natural relations of the ge- 

 nus, and the characters by which it differs from Rafflesia and Brug- 

 mansia, between which Mr. Griffith places it, 



Mr. Griffith next proceeds to offfer some observations on Cytineee, 

 and on the genera Hydnora and Cytinus. He believes that the dif- 

 ference in the direction of the nuclei of the ovula in Cytinece and 

 Rafflesiacece may perhaps be of some use in discriminating them ; 

 but thinks it necessary to observe that in Nepenthes distillatoria of the 

 Calcutta Botanic Garden, the most marked instances of ovula ana- 

 tropa and antitropa are to be met with in the ovaria at their mature 

 state, to which circumstance he attributes the discrepancies in the 

 accounts of the direction of the radicle of the ripe seed of that genus. 

 His observations on Hydnora were made on specimens of H. Africana 

 both in the dry state and in pyroligneous acid sent to him by Mr. 

 Harvey from the Cape of Good Hope. He regards the anthers as 

 indefinite, and describes the stigma as " discoideum, trilobum, e la- 

 mellis plurimis in placentas totidem pendulas undique ovuliferas pro- 

 ductis," a structure which, if correctly determined, appears to him 

 to present another objection to the placentary hypothesis of M. 

 Schleiden. He also notices the apparent opposition of the lobes of 

 the stigma to the lobes of the staminal column. In regard to the 

 composition of the pistillum he hesitates between regarding it as 

 highly compound and analogous to Papaver and Nymphcea, the space 

 between each lamella corresponding with a carpellary leaf, and each 

 lamella itself being compound, or considering it as made up of only 

 three parts, to which latter opinion his own observations and those 

 of Mr. Harvey would lead. 



Mr. Griffith's observations on Cytinus are derived from specimens 

 of C. dioicus, Juss., also sent to him from the Cape of Good Hope 

 by Mr. Harvey. He follows Jussieu and Endlicher in referring the 

 Cape species to the genus Cytinus. He regards the terminal teeth 

 or lobes of the staminal column as productions of the connectivum. 



