BROOM-RAPES, BALANOPHORE.E, RAFFLESIACE.E. 189 



distribute themselves in the tissue of the parasite, the latter having in the mean- 

 time developed into a tuberous stock as large as a nut. These radiating bundles, 

 issuing from the wood of the nutrient root, come then into such intimate connection 

 with the vessels formed in the tuber of the parasite, that the one appears to be a 

 continuation of the other. They are, besides, entangled together, and between them 

 is intercalated a mass of small parenchymatous cells which also adheres to the yet 

 unfrayed portion of the foster-root's wood, and coalesces with it. The tuberous 

 body of the parasite, which in the first instance is only adnate to the host on one 



Fig. 39. Parasitic Balanophoreaj. 

 i Scybaliumfungiforme, from Brazil. a Balanophora Hildenbrandtii, from the Comoro Islands. 



side, gradually encompasses it entirely, and the nutritive root then appears to 

 perforate this irregular tuber. The inflorescences are produced direct from buds, 

 which are formed under the bark at projecting spots of the brown tuberous stem, 

 the cortex bursting open and allowing a thick flesh-coloured shoot, closely beset by 

 ovoid pointed scales, to emerge and grow up into a form resembling a mortar-pestle. 

 At the summit this shoot expands into a disc, and upon this are borne little capitu- 

 late groups of flowers, which are inserted amongst innumerable quantities of scales 

 and hairs. The pistillate and staminate flowers are separated in different inflo- 

 rescences, whilst the entire structure has an undeniable resemblance when in bloom 

 to the inflorescence of an artichoke gone to seed, and later on to a toad-stool. 



In the eastern hemisphere we find the various species of the genus Balanophora 

 replacing the Langsdorffias and Scybalia. One of these, Balanophora Hilden- 



