BROOM-RAPES, BALANOPHOREii;, RAFFLESIAOEjE. 



203 



iire only as lai'ge as a walnut ami give scarcely any indication of their future 

 magnitude; but they gradually increase in size, and before opening are curiously 

 like a cabbage. Up to this time the bracts still inclose the flower proper, and 

 to them is due the above-mentioned resemblance. They now open back, and 

 the flower, which, to the last, grows rapidly, unfolds and displays five immense 

 lobes around a central bowl or cup-shaped portion. The form of the giant-flower 

 when open is best likened to that of a forget-me-not blossom. The semicircular 

 outline of the lobes, at least, is similar, and the very short thx'oat of the flower also 

 exhibits a distant resemblance. At the part where the bowl-shaped centre, which 



Fijr- 45. — Raßiesia Padma, p.irasitic on routs upon the surface of the ground. 



has the stamens and styles inserted in it, passes into the lobes there is a thick, 

 fleshy ring like a corona. The upper surface of the lobes is covered with numbers 

 of papilljB. The lobes themselves, the hollow central bowl, and the ring, are all 

 fleshy, and the flower, as a whole, emits an unpleasant putrescent smell. This 

 floral prodigy was first discovered in the year 1818 in the interior of Sumatra at 

 Pulo Lebbas on the river Manna, where it occurs parasitic on the roots of wild 

 vines in places where the ground is strewn with the dung of elephants. It has 

 never yet been seen anywhere outside Sumatra. Four other Rafllesise have, 

 however, been discovered, but all in the islands of the Indian Ocean — Java, Borneo, 

 and the Philippines. In mode of growth, as also in the form of the flowers, they 

 resemble the species above described, but their flowers are rather smaller. 

 Baßesia Padma, which occurs in Java, and is represented in fig. 45, possesses 

 flowers with a diameter of half a meter. The hollow, somewhat ventricose centre 

 and the ring bordering the floral receptacle are in this Rafflesia of a dirty 



