188 BROOM-RAPES, BALANOPHOREE, RAFFLESIACEE. 
contact; the wood is exposed, split open, and unravelled, whilst the tissue of the 
parasitic stem fills up all the interspaces in the upcurved and sundered woody 
bundles and fibres, and so intimate is the union thus effected that the stem of the 
Langsdorfia might be taken to be a branch of the root of the host-plant which 
sustains it. At the point of connection of an already adult Zangsdorfia stem, the 
hypertrophy of the tissue is not very striking; but the base of each stem of an indi- 
vidual produced from a seed presents a highly swollen and clavate appearance. At 
first the parasite is only fastened by one side of this thickened base to the nutrient 
root, but later on it wraps both sides round the root, and rests upon the latter like 
a saddle on the back of a horse. 
Between the bundles of a Langsdorfia stem there are passages filled with a 
peculiar wax-like matter named balanophorin. The quantity of this substance is 
so great that if one end of a stem of Langsdorffia is lighted, it burns like a wax- 
taper, and in the region of the Bogota these Langsdorffias are collected and sold 
under the name of “siejos”, and are used for illuminating purposes on festive 
oceasions. In New Granada they have also been employed in the making of 
candles; and, although this source of wax is not sufficiently abundant for us to be 
able to believe in its consumption and conversion on a large scale, the fact of its 
application in this manner shows that the parasite we are discussing must occur in 
great exuberance in many tracts of country in Central America. 
Much rarer than the parasitic Langsdorffias are the species belonging to the 
genus Scybaliwm. Like the former these are confined to the equatorial zone of 
America. Two species, viz. Scybalium Glaziovii and S. depresswm, flourish in 
mountainous districts, one of them indeed occurring only on the mountains of New 
Granada; two other species (Scybalium jamaicense and S. fungiforme) live in the 
woods and savannahs of lower-lying regions. The aspect of the last-named species 
when seen growing on the ground of a primeval forest, tempts one to suppose it to 
be a fungus, and it is easily understood why the first discoverer selected the term 
fungiforme to apply to it. Figure 391, representing this rare and marvellous plant, 
is taken from the original specimens discovered in the year 1820 by Schott in the 
Sierra d’Estrella of Brazil, and brought thence by him to Vienna. We see that, in 
this case, instead of the elongated, wavy, branched stem characteristic of Langs- 
dorffias, a lumpy, tuberous mass rests upon the root of the host-plant. This tuber 
is sometimes rounded and sometimes compressed and discoid; it is nodulated and 
often irregularly lobed also, and grows to the size of a fist. It is developed from 
a seed which, as is the case in all Balanophoree, is a cellular structure without 
integument containing an embryo destitute of cotyledons and radicle, and is best 
described as a minute tubercle. The embryo, after emerging from the seed and 
finding the living root of a woody plant, increases in volume, and, in the form of 
a little knob the size of a pea, exercises the same influence on the plant preyed 
upon as has been noted in the case of Langsdorfia. The root attacked is stripped 
of bark at the place where the tubercle is attached; the wood is then resolved into 
a fringe of fibres which stand straight up, and, diverging like the spokes of a fan, 
