121. BALANOPHORACEM. 



Amorg wet grass in valleys. Chota Nagpur elev. 3000 ft. I Fl., Fr. April-June. 

 The roots appear to be annual and there is nothing to show that it is parasitic on 

 a cursorj^ examination. 



Flowers at first cylindric with 4 fleshy oblong tepals "02" long with white 

 margins, slightly villbus within and with some hairs behind the anthers attaching 

 them to the tepals, which are hardened and incurved in fruit. Ovary sunk in the- 

 hypanthium. filled with parenchyma, column a slender flexuous thread bearing at, 

 its top 3 microscopic ovules, wail of ovary rapidly hardening in fruit which is a 

 globose drupe venose when drj*, the parenchyma becoming converted into white 

 perisperm. Embryo most minute, tapering towards the superior radicle, with 2 

 very minute cotyledons. 



A remarkable'species. The fruit develops very rapidly, flowers being only found 

 in the axils of immature leaves, which as they grow carry forward the fruit a short 

 distance from the base and with the spreading bracts appear 3-foliolate. It 

 appears closely allied to T. himalense, Boyle, which MoyJe says "I found on the 

 arid rocky soil near Choupal, to the north of Choor," and therefore in a very 

 different kind of habitat. 



2. SANTALUM, L. 



Trees or shrubs with opposite rarely alternate coriaceous leaves 

 and small 2-sexual flowers axillary or in terminal 3-chotomous pani- 

 culate cymes. Bracts minute. Hypanthium more or less adnate 

 at the base to the ovary, campanulate, bearing 4, rarely 5, valvate 

 tepals and lined by a fleshy disc terminating in 4 fleshy scales alter- 

 nating with the tepals. Stamens perigynous on the margin of the 

 disc opposite to the tepals. Ovary at first nearly free, becoming 

 half -inferior in fruit, with elongate style and 2-3-lobed stigma. Ovules 

 2-.3 reflexed on a long acuminate free central column. Fruit with 

 the accrescent hypanthium drupaceous. Seed subglobose, embryo 

 terete slender. 



1. S. album, L. Chandan, H. ; Sandal-wood. 



A small glabrous evergreen tree, a hemi-parasite on the roots of a 

 variety of trees. Leaves opposite 1-2-3" long, ovate-lanceolate or 

 elliptic, acute or subacute. Flowers small, at first pale then deep 

 crimson, -18" diam. with rotate ovate tepals. Disc-lobes very thick. 

 Stamens free from the tepals or only loosely adhering dorsally by the 

 tuft of villi which grow up from the perianth at their base. Fruit a 

 fleshy globose shining black drupe annulate at the top with the margin 

 of the hypanthium. 



Collected by the Rev. A. Cam2)beU on Parasnath! Introduced by Mr. Mudaliar 

 into Sambalp'ur a few years ago I* Fl. Sept.-Dec, also March. Fr. March-April, 

 also Nov. 



Santal takes about 2 months to germinate. 



FAM. 121. BALANOPHORACE^. 



Low fleshy leafless or scaly brown, reddish or yellow root parasites 

 (or sometimes saprophytes ?), without stomata. Flow^ers monoecious 

 or dioecious, small or minute, crowded on spadix-like peduncled 

 globose or elongate heads, peduncles very stout, simple, arising from 

 an amorphous tuberous or branching annual or perennial rootstock. 

 Male perianth of 3-8 valvate tepals or 0, sometimes much larger than 



* Mr. Mudaliar wrote a short article on this subject to the Ind. Forester (July, 

 1917, p. 318). 



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