188 BROOM-RAPES, BALANOPHORE^, RAFFLESIACE^. 



contact; the wood is exposed, split open, and unravelled, whilst the tissue of the 

 parasitic stem fills up all the interspaces in the upeurved and sundered woody- 

 bundles and fibres, and so intimate is the union thus effected that the stem of the 

 Langsdorffia might be taken to be a branch of the root of the host-plant which 

 sustains it. At the point of connection of an already adult Langsdorffia stem, the 

 hypertrophy of the tissue is not very striking; but the base of each stem of an indi- 

 vidual produced from a seed presents a highly swollen and clavate appearance. At 

 first the parasite is only fastened by one side of this thickened base to the nutrient 

 root, but later on it wraps both sides round the root, and rests upon the latter like 

 a saddle on the back of a horse. 



Between the bundles of a Langsdorffia stem there are passages filled with a 

 peculiar wax-like matter named balanophorin. The quantity of this substance is 

 so great that if one end of a stem of Langsdorffia is lighted, it burns like a wax- 

 taper, and in the region of the Bogota these Langsdorfiias are collected and sold 

 under the name of "siejos", and are used for illuminating purposes on festive 

 occasions. In New Granada they have also been employed in the making of 

 candles; and, although this source of wax is not sufficiently abundant for us to be 

 able to believe in its consumption and conversion on a large scale, the fact of its 

 application in this manner shows that the parasite we are discussing must occur in 

 great exuberance in many tracts of country in Central America. 



Much rarer than the parasitic Langsdorffias are the species belonging to the 

 genus Scybalium. Like the former these are confined to the equatorial zone of 

 America. Two species, viz. Scybalium Glaziovii and S. depressum, flourish in 

 mountainous districts, one of them indeed occurring only on the mountains of New 

 Granada; two other species (Scyhalium jamaicense and S. fungiforme) live in the 

 woods and savannahs of lower-lying regions. The aspect of the last-named species 

 when seen growing on the ground of a primeval forest, tempts one to suppose it to 

 be a fungus, and it is easily understood why the first discoverer selected the term 

 fungiforme to apply to it. Figure 39 ^, representing this rare and marvellous plant, 

 is taken from the original specimens discovered in the year 1820 by Schott in the 

 Sierra d'Estrella of Brazil, and brought thence by him to Vienna. We see that, in 

 this case, instead of the elongated, wavy, branched stem characteristic of Langs- 

 dorfiias, a lumpy, tuberous mass rests upon the root of the host-plant. This tuber 

 is sometimes rounded and sometimes compressed and discoid; it is nodulated and 

 often irregularly lobed also, and grows to the size of a fist. It is developed from 

 a seed which, as is the case in all Balanophoreoe, is a cellular structure without 

 integument containing an embryo destitute of cotyledons and radicle, and is best 

 described as a minute tubercle. The embryo, after emerging from the seed and 

 finding the living root of a woody plant, increases in volume, and, in the form of 

 a little knob the size of a pea, exercises the same influence on the plant preyed 

 upon as has been noted in the case of Langsdorffia. The root attacked is stripped 

 of bark at the place where the tubercle is attached; the wood is then resolved into 

 a fringe of fibres which stand straight up, and, diverging like the spokes of a fan, 



