OF BALANOPHORE.fi. 47 



stem, the wood forming a zone of wedges round a central pith (Tah. VIII. fig. 11) enclosed 

 by a cellular zone that communicates with the pith by broad medullary rays : the total 

 absence of pith in the root, with whose wood these bundles communicate, would thus seem 

 to indicate that the wood of the rhizome belongs to itself, though it has all the appear- 

 ance of being solely produced by the root ; the root, in short, supplies the nutriment from 

 its own vascular tissue, but the parasite organizes it. 



7. Balanophora alutacea, Junghuhn in Nov. Act. Acad. Cscs. Nat. Cur. xvui. Suppl. 



205 ; Goeppert, ibid. p. 230. t. 3. An B. abbreviata, Blume, En. PI. Jav. i. 87 ? 

 Hab. Sylvis tropicis Javae [Junghuhn). Ins. Philippinis {Cuming). FI. Aprili. 



A very much smaller species than any of the preceding, according to Junghuhn's 

 description and plate, but probably, like its congeners, extremely variable in size. Its 

 prominent characters are the tuberous rhizome, like that of B. dioica and B. involncrata ; 

 its few, short, broad, subvaginate scales in the peduncle, and its cylindrical capitula with a 

 few male flowers at the base, in which character it resembles B.fungosa and certain states 

 of B. involticrata. 



8. Balanophora (Poltplethia) poltandra, Grifif. in Linn. Soc. Trans, xx. p. 94. t. 7. 



Hab. Sylvis subtropicis Mont. KhasiK (Griffith) et Himalaya provincia Sikkim, alt. 4-6000 ped. {J. D. H.). 

 Fl. August.-Novemb. (v.v.) 



This species is very abundant in the localities enumerated above, and varies in height 

 (from 2 to 6 inches), in robustness, in colour, and in the form of the capitula, which are 

 however always short and subcylincbic or conical. I have frequently not been able to 

 distinguish female specimens of this from those of B. dioica, nor indeed, except by the 

 alternate scales, from those of B. involncrata. The numerous anthers of the male flower 

 and usually larger perianth of that sex distinguish it from its congeners. 



I have made many detailed analyses of the anatomy of this species at all stages of 

 growth (excejjt the germinating), both in the Khasia Mountains and Himalaya, but do 

 not find any point of unportance except the anthers in which it differs from B. dioica, 

 fimgosa and inDolucrata. The male flowers are well figiu-ed and described by Griffith. 



VII. LoPHOPHTTUM, Schott & Endl. 



In habit this genus approaches to Cynomoriuni more nearly than to any other of 

 the Order, as may be seen by comparing their very young states; in each the upper 

 part of the rhizome is clothed with spu'ally arranged imbricating scales, which pass into 

 the bracteal scales of the inflorescence. In both the flowers are aggregated into definite 

 masses, which masses are immediately covered by the dependent portion of the peltate 

 bracteal scales ; but whereas in Cgnomoviuui any fm'ther tendency to a branched inflores- 

 cence is arrested at a very early stage, in Lophophytitm the development of the branches 

 proceeds with that of the whole plant. The paleaj observed by Weddell amongst the 

 female flowers of L. mirabile are a further point of resemblance, as are the ii-regular dis- 

 position of the vascular bundles in the rhizome and great abundance of starch-granules 

 in the parenchyma. 



