190 BROOM-RAPES, BALANOPHORE^, RAFFLESIACEjE. 



brandtii, which is represented on the left side of the figure 39, occurs in tlie 

 Comoro Islands off the east coast of Africa; seven species inhabit the islands of 

 Java, Ceylon, Borneo, Hong-Kong, and the Philippines, and three species the East 

 Indies. Balanophora fmtgoaa, first discovered by Forster, is parasitic on the roots 

 of Eucalyptus and Ficus, and is indigenous to Australia and the New Hebi-ides. 

 The more elevated regions of Java and the Himalaya abound especially in 

 these singular organisms. Balanophora elongata is so prevalent in Java on 

 mountains of between 2000 and 3000 metres, that it is collected in quantities for 

 the sake of the wax-like matter obtained from it. In that island candles are made 

 from Balanophoras as they are from LangsdorfEas in New Granada, or else rods of 

 bamboo are smeared with the viscid substance, as they are then found to burn quite 

 quietly and slowly. In the Himalaya, Balanophora dioica or B. i^olyandra are 

 the commonest and most widely distributed species, and Balanophora involucrata 

 is there met with upon the roots of oaks, maples, and araliads even at a height of 

 from 2300 to 2500 metres above the sea-level. They possess in almost all cases 

 very vivid and conspicuous colouring — deep-yellow, purple, red-brown or flesh-tint, 

 thus resembling the Gastromycetes, Clavariese, and Toad-stools, in whose company 

 they grow, and with which they manifest an additional uniformity in being all of 

 fleshy consistence and containing no trace of chlorophyll. At a certain distance, 

 moreover, the inflorescences rising from the dai'k ground in a wood, have the 

 appearance of fungi, and all the early observers describe these Balanophoreaj with 

 one accord as truly abnormal growths, viz. as fungi which by some marvellous 

 accident bear flowers. They were also the object of the boldest speculations and 

 most exuberant imagery on the part of the botanists belonging to the school of the 

 " nature philosophers " of the first decades of this century. Even as late as the forties 

 a famous German botanist says of them: "They are in the position of a hiero- 

 glyphic key between two worlds, which intercept and evade one another in an 

 infinite variety of ways, like dreaming and waking moments", and the woi'thy 

 Junghuhn, who discovered several of these plants in Java, writes: "Those are 

 words which we may hope will be rightly interpreted thousands of years hence. 

 Their sublime truth aflected me deeply. There, flowerless and leafless, stood the 

 mysterious plants which aflbrd an instance of the combination of special vessels 

 in a stalk like that of Balanophorere with the fructification of imperfect Hypho- 

 mycetes!" 



A young Balanophora not in flower is not unlike a Scybalium in appearance 

 at the corresponding stage of its development. It consists of an iiTCgular tuberous 

 stem, which rests upon the creeping root of a tree or shrub. The exterior of this 

 structure, which sometimes attains to the size of a man's head, is uneven, and in 

 some cases convoluted like the human brain, or it may project in humps and knobs, 

 or be divided into lobes or short branches like a coral-stem. The resemblance to 

 the latter is heightened by the fact that the surface is covered by little papillae 

 shaped like stars or forget-me-nots, which distinguish the genus Balanophora 

 from all allied genera. 



