OF BALANOPHORE^, 53 



probable that his specimens were most imperfect, and perhaps covered with mould. The 

 museum at Kew is indebted to Prof, de Vriese of Leyden for beautiful Javanese specimens 

 of both sexes, wliich being authentically named, enal)led me to recognize Junghuhn's 

 plant as identical with the Himalayan and Khasian one ; and which, making allowance 

 for the absence of male flowers, and for his erroneous description of the females, is also 

 identical with the Fh(eocordylis of Griffith, gathered at the same spot in the Khasia 

 Mountains where Dr. Thomson and I procured an abundant supply of specimens. 



Rhopalocnemis is by far the largest and the handsomest of the Selosidece, and it is the 

 only one which I have had an opportunity of examining in a living state ; it is most 

 closely allied to CoryiKBci, differing in the presence of a volva and in the unisexual capi- 

 tula. It grows gregariously, in shady mountain woods, its large heads of a pale yellow- 

 brown colour alone appearing above ground : it is of a firm, fleshy consistence, perfectly 

 inodorous even when decaying. I have vainly tried to induce the ripe seeds to germinate, 

 and have examined many himdreds in the fruitless attempt to discover any embryo in the 

 mass filling the whole cavity of the seed. Dui-ing the shedding of the fruit, the capitula 

 (of gathered specimens) copiously exuded a transparent sugary fluid, but I have never 

 observed this on the living plant : it is no doubt analogous to the fluid described by 

 Weddell as bathing the capitida of some BalanophoretB, and supposed by that author to 

 be of use in the operation of fecundation. 



The rhizome varies from the size of an egg to that of the human head, and is supplied 

 internally with many stout woody branches, which appear conttauous with the wood of 

 the rootstock, and which upon maceration are found to send continuous bundles to the 

 top of the capitulum. The peduncles are solitary, or many together on large rhizomes, 

 and are enveloped at the base by a hard, fleshy, erect, cylindrical volva, ^2 inches high ; 

 they vary in length from 2 to 6 inches, and in diameter from ^ to 2 inches ; they are 

 altogether naked below, but in the upper part are covered to a greater or less distance 

 below the capitulum with fleshy, patent, and somewhat recurved scales, \ inch long, 

 which appear to be persistent, and to occur chiefly on the male plants. The hexagonal 

 fleshy scales which cover the whole capitulum are altogether similar to those of Selosis ; 

 as are the female perianths to those of Coryncea, and the males to those of Selosis. 



In flowering, both males and females expand at the same time, throwing off their 

 cohering bracteal scales in large masses, and exposing a velvety pile of styles, and a 

 dense mass of subjacent articulate threads. There are several crops of male flowers, 

 which expand successively ; and in the dense humid calm woods in which this genus grows, 

 insect agency is prol^ably necessary to impregnation. During the ripening of the fruit, 

 the surface of the capitulum becomes areolated from the swelling of the masses answering 

 to an obscure lobing of that organ, and at first externally defined by one of the fallen 

 bract-scales, and internally by a vascular bundle from the plexus of vessels within the 

 capitidum. 



My examination of living specimens, both in the Khasia Mountains and in Sikkim, led 

 to no results which may not as well be obtained from those preserved in spirits, for the 

 sphacelation and browning of the cut surfaces were so instantaneous, that I had to put 

 the sections in spirits as soon as made. A careful study of the ovule and seed at all 



