121. BALANOPHORACEJE. 



the female flower, stamens as many as the tepals and opposite to them, 

 or filaments connate in a solid column with anthers connate or free 

 or anthers sessile in a mass, or in the naked flowers stamens 1-2 only ; 

 anthers 2-many-celled, opening by pores, slits or valves or irre- 

 gularly. Fern, perianth or confluent with the ovary, limb or 

 minutely toothed. Ovary 1-3-celled, styles 1-2 or 0, stigmas simple 

 or capitellate, rarely sessile and pulvinate. Ovule 1 in each cell, 

 usually pendulous from the top, atropous or anatropous, naked or 

 with a single integument or reduced to an embryo-sac. Fruit 

 minute, crustaceous or coriaceous, 1 -seeded. Seed usually adherent 

 to the pericarp, testa thin or 0, rarely thick, albumen granular and 

 oily, rarely floury. Embryo most minute, undivided. 



1. BALANOPHORA, ForsL 



Glabrous fleshy herbs with a tuberous rootstock warted with 

 lenticels, abounding in a waxy secretion. Peduncles bursting through 

 the rootstock which forms an irregularly or sub-regularly lobed or 

 toothed ring or short sheath at its base. Flowers small or very 

 minute, males comparatively large, monoecious or dioecious, often 

 intermixed with swollen or clavate bodies (function unknown, usually 

 exceeding the ovaries). Male perianth of 2-6 valvate tepals ; stamens 

 2-many, filaments or connate in a column, anthers free or connate. 

 Fem. perianth 0. Ovary ellipsoid, 1 -celled, narrowed into a slender 

 style with terminal simple stigma, ovule 1, pendulous. Fruit minute, 

 crustaceous. Seed adhering to the pericarp, albumen oily. Embryo 

 subglobose of 2-3 cells only. 



Engler states that the waxy resin in the BalanopTiorcB is so ahundant that they 

 burn with great brilUancy. 



1. B. polyandra, Griff. 



Rootstock tuberous, lobed, the peduncles each breaking through a 

 rounded closely lenticellate lobe which becomes cup-shaped and 

 embraces the base of the peduncle with a subregularly lobed sheath. 

 Peduncles 3-6" high, several, clothed with few large oblong-lanceolate 

 imbricating and sheathing scales. Peduncle monoecious swollen at 

 the end into a clavate head 1-2" long bearing few large male flowers 

 at its base, and densely crowded above these small stipitate knob- 

 shaped protuberances, each surrounded by most minute female 

 flowers. Male perianth •15--2" diam. with 4, occasionally 6, tepals, 

 posterior and anterior tepal broadly oblong, lateral smaller, androe- 

 cium a fleshy mass with numerous confluent anther-cells. Fem. a 

 shortly stipitate fusiform ovary ending in a hair-like style. 



On roots of trees. Palamau: Neterhat; elev.3000ft. ! SantalPar. : Mahuagarhi, 

 Gamble \ Fl. Sept.-Oct. 



In the description of B. polj/andra in F.£ I. the male heads are described as 

 cylindric and the female heads' as ovoid or oblong, from which it appears that the 

 species is sometimes dioecious or at any rate that the peduncles are 1-sexual. 



FAM. 122, ULMACE^. 



Trees, more rarely shrubs, with 2-farious, simple, often unequal- 

 sided leaves, frequently dotted with cystoliths (the cystolith cells 



806 



