720 



nature and intimately combined with its superficial woody layers, 

 and thdt this intermediate body is penetrated by their spiral vessels 

 which render it woody.' He moreover adds, that ' several seeds of 

 Balanophorese germinate on nearly the same points of the fig-root; 

 hence this woody body, or luxuriant product of the juices that are 

 sucked out, has generally an irregular form, and the plants proceed- 

 ing from such tubers grow out in different directions, much in the 

 same manner as the tubers of a potato generate their offsets ; with 

 this difference, however, that in a potato the eyes of the plant are in 

 the circumference, while in Balanophorathey are placed in the centre, 

 and on that account the intermediate body where the offsets break 

 out, has necessarily a conical extension.' Something of the same 

 kind occurs in Scybalium, whose tubers are expanded in an irregular 

 form about the root of some unknown tree, are fleshy, and composed 

 even in the substance of the stalk of somewhat irregular cells and no 

 spiral vessels." — Lind. Veg. Kingd. 84. 



Mr. GrifHth says " there is a wide difference, it appears to me, be- 

 tween the parasitism of Sapria, Cytiuus, and very probably of Raffle- 

 sia, and that of Balanophora and Pha^ocordylis, which appears to me 

 to be of a peculiar nature." Blume's observations quoted above, how- 

 ever, shovv a remarkable coincidence between the mode of growth of 

 Rafilesia and Balanophora. What Mr. Brown calls the reticulated 

 base of RafBcsia, he has ascertained to be, as he anticipated, " derived 

 from the stock or root of the vine, but excited and determined in its 

 form and nature by the specific stimulus of the parasite ;" and re- 

 specting this part in Balanophora, he thus writes : — " In some 

 of those that I have examined, especially two species of Balanophora, 

 the nature of this connexion is such, as can only be explained on the 

 supposition that the germinating seed of the parasite excites a speci- 

 fic action in the stock, the result of which is the formation of a struc- 

 ture, either wholly or in part, derived from the root, and adapted to 

 the support and protection of the undeveloped parasite ; analogous 

 therefore to the production of galls by the puncture of insects :" 

 {Linn. Trans, xiii. 227). Thus are the observations of Blume confirm- 

 ed by one of the greatest botanists of the day, and at the same time is 

 conclusive evidence afibrded of the identity of the mode of parasitism 

 obtaining in two genera, which by some botanists have been consi- 

 dered as having little in common ; the only difference being that in 

 Rafflesia but one plant is developed from each of these gall-like en- 

 largements of the stock, while in Balanophora there are several. 



