12 DR. J. D. HOOKER ON THE STRUCTURE AND 



Columbia the medullary system is much more utricular, lax, and membranous ; but there 

 are so many modifications of all these tissues in different specimens of the same species 

 and parts of the same specimen, that it would be useless to multiply descriptions of them. 



In all the other HelosidecB the same vessels are very conspicuous ; but owing to the 

 form of the rhizome they are confused in arrangement and variable in amount, frequently 

 presenting no system whatever. 



Langsdorffia presents the same exogenous arrangement in its rhizome as Helosis, but 

 its axis (pith) is formed wholly of long wood-tubes (Plate II. figs. 5 & 6) : its tissues are 

 more particularly described under the remarks on the genus itself; where also its resem- 

 blance to the Indian Balanoiihorece in its waxy cell-contents is noticed. 



Cijnomorimn has a rhizome which I have never seen to branch, though luxiu'iant speci- 

 mens jirobably do so. The fusiform axis at the base of the peduncle, which is probably 

 not the rhizome, but only the base of the peduncle, presents in a transverse section 

 many small, unsymmetrically disposed vascular fascicles : each of these is composed of — 

 1. towards the axis a bundle of delicate, white, cylindrical and angular, barred or scala- 

 riform vessels, or long polygonal cells with variously marked faces : — 2. externally to 

 this is a rather broad mass of vertically elongated oblong cells, of equal length ; with 

 blunt superimposed extremities, which aU meet at the same height ; giving this tissue a 

 transversely marked appearance. 



The tissues of Sarcophyte and Mystropetalon present nothing remarkable. 



Cellular tissue. — This has been extremely well described in the Java species, by Goeppert, 

 of whose remarks the figures of JB. involucrata (Plate IV. figs. 7, 8, &c.) are illustrative. 

 The waUs of the cells are almost invariably dotted ; in some cases owing to pores, and in 

 others to deposits of wax and chlorophyll. Very frequently (and always in young speci- 

 mens) each cell presents a conspicuous cytoblast, firmly adherent to a discoid spot. At 

 Plate IV. fig. 11. are seen some of the waxy contents of the cells, in the shape of spherical 

 or rounded nuclei of various sizes ; full of utricles, which appear to burst, and scatter their 

 granular contents within the cell, which is seen ruptm'ed in fig. 13. 



The wax of Langsdorffia and Balanopliora is replaced in most of the other genera by 

 starch-grains : these are especially abundant in Sarcophyte, Cynomorium and Lopho- 

 phytum, which are in consequence eaten, as are other species occasionally*. The fluids 

 of most of the species are colourless or pale yellow ; those of the Indian Balanophorm are 

 quite white, and often very viscid. 



I have never observed the appearance of the red cortical layer of the bark of the root, 

 which Goeppert describes as ascending with and surrounding the vascular bundles of the 

 rhizome in Balanophora, and which, he adds, contains tannin : it .is, however, very con- 

 spicuous in Langsdorffia, and probably developed more or less in many other species. I 

 have not found the raphides which he describes in the Javanese B. alutacea. 



Unger calls the elongated parenchyma-ceUs with cytoblasts, " pseudo-pleurenchyma," 

 and notices their similarity to vessels that occur in FiUces ; and he hence alludes to an 

 affinity between Balanophorece and Acrogens. Goeppert also, considering that the cellular 



* A chemical analysis of this wax is given by Goeppert, who calls it Balanophorine, and observes that it resembles 

 the wax of Ceroxylon andicola. 



