AFFINITIES OF BALANOPHORE^. 6 



novam et matricis naturae alienani prolem consumuntur * * *." These theories have 

 been well combated by Goeppert, who adduces the fact of the same species oi Balanopliora 

 growing indifferently on various plants of very different natural families, as being quite 

 opposed to them; to which may be added, that they have an independently developed 

 vascidar system of then" own, which only in some species blends with that of the root ; 

 and that they are propagated by seeds. 



Griffith does not seem to have traced the vascular bundles of the root into the peduncle 

 of the parasite ; for in his valuable paper on Balanophora (Linn. Soc. Trans, xx. p. 96), he 

 describes them all as rising from the root into the rhizome, and terminating abruptly in 

 the axis, towards its periphery : this well describes the appearance of those bundles Avhich 

 form the main body of the parasite ; and they may be seen in the vertical section given 

 in Plate IV. fig. 20, radiating in a fan-like manner from the root, and terminating in 

 broad truncate masses towards the circumference of the rhizome. In a transverse section 

 again (fig. 19) of a young, symmetrically formed, unbranehed rhizome, with one peduncle, 

 the vasetdar bundles will be found to be much more regularly disposed round a cellular 

 axis, and separated by broad rays of cellular tissue. 



Goeppert and linger both consider that there is a double vascular system in the parasite ; 

 the one given off by the root on which it grows, and the other confined exclusively to the 

 peduncle and its appendages, though passing downwards through the axis of the rhizome 

 to within a very short distance of the base of the parasite, and there terminating abruptly. 



The result of my own observations on live plants of Rhopalocnemis (and which were 

 verified by Dr. Thomson), is that the vascular bundles of the peduncle are so intimately 

 united with those of the rhizome towards the base of the latter, that they are organically 

 one and the same tissue. In illustration of this I will refer to Plate .IV. fig. 22, as being 

 taken from one of the simplest and most symmetrical forms presented by a Balanophora : 

 in tliis the letter a indicates the union of the vascular bundles of the peduncle and rhizome. 

 Of Rhopalocnemis and Balanophora dioica I macerated many specimens in all stages of 

 growth, some being in ripe fruit, when the vascular bundles have most consistence ; and I 

 never failed in dissecting them out in continuous masses from the bases of the apparent 

 root-branches in the rhizome to the capitulum itself. 



The vascular branches that connect the root with the rhizome of the parasite, are 

 altogether analogous to those found in the exostoses of DeCandoUe on the roots of various 

 Leguminous plants ; and especially such as have been pointed out to me by Prof. Henslow 

 as being frequent on the roots of Laburnum*. 



The root itself of the plant on which B.fungosa grows, has no pith (Plate VIII. fig. 15); 

 but the branches which it appears to send into the parasite, enclose a pith (figs. 10 & 11 «), 

 and the wedges of wood of which these branches are composed become broken up at a 

 distance from the base of the rhizome (fig. 11 bb) ; the branches terminate in cyHncbical 

 masses of cellular tissue, enclosing a few imperfect spiral or barred vessels in their axis. 



* These latter are coralloid masses, consisting of a cortical and woody sj'stem, the latter provided with obscure 

 medullary rays: as their distance from the root is increased, their brknches become simpler in structure, being merely 

 cellular cylinders with a vascular axis or core, the latter consisting of a little pleurenchyma and very imperfectly 

 developed annular and other vessels. 



