284 



HENDERSON'S HANDBOOK OF PLANTS. 



B. 



BAG 



r._A berry ; that is to say, a suc- 

 culent seed-vessel filled with pulp, 

 in which the seeds nestle, as in the 

 Tomato. Bacca corticata is a berry hav- 

 ing a rind, as an Orange. Bacca swca is 

 a fruit which is a berry when unripe, but 

 becomes a dry body when ripened. Bacca 

 spuria is any fleshy fruit which is not a 

 true bacca or berry; as the Juniper, 

 Strawberry, Raspberry, etc. 



Baccate. Having a pulpy or succulent tex- 

 ture ; a term only applied to the parts of 

 a flower or fruit ; berried, fleshy. 



Baccate Seeds. Seeds with a pulpy skin. 



Baccatus. Berry-bearing. 



Baccaularius. Such a fruit as that of the 

 Mallow, viz., several one-seeded or two- 

 seeded dry carpels cohering round an 



Bacilli. The separable, moving, narrow 

 plates of which the genus Diatoma is com- 

 posed. 



Bacillus. The little bulbs found on the 

 inflorescence of some plants; a term 

 rarely employed. 



Badious. Chestnut brown. 



Bagged. Resembling a bag or sack. 



Balanophoracece, (Cynomoriums.) A small 

 natural order, consisting of about thirty 

 species, of singular-looking, succulent, 

 leafless plants, usually highly colored, of 

 various shades of yellow or red ; all para- 

 sites on roots, and rising from an inch 

 or two to about a foot above ground. 

 Their color and consistence, the absence 

 of all leaves, except in a few species, 

 imbricated scales of the color of the rest 

 of the plant, and the greatly reduced 

 structure of the flowers, had induced 

 some botanists to consider them as Cryp- 



BAL 



togamia allied to Fungi ; but their struc- 

 ture is now much better understood, and 

 has been fully described, especially by 

 Dr. J. D. Hooker. He has shown them 

 to be most nearly connected with Halor- 

 agece, and to have no real affinity with 

 Rafflesiacece, Orobanchacece, or any other 

 root parasites, which assume something 

 of a similar color and consistence. The 

 flowers are, in nearly all the species, uni- 

 sexual, of very simple structure, and pro- 

 duced in considerable numbers, in com- 

 pact terminal heads or cones ; the small 

 perianth, usually simple and inferior in 

 the females, more or less three-cleft or 

 six-cleft in the males, is in some species 

 wholly wanting ; the stamens, usually 

 few, are very variable in number and 

 form ; the ovary has one or two styles, 

 and always a single cavity with one pen- 

 dulous ovule. 



The Balanophoracece are natives of hot 

 climates, in various parts of both the 

 New and the Old World, one species 

 only, the Cynomorium coccineum, or 

 Fungus melitensis of old authors, being 

 found as far north as the southern shores 

 of the Mediterranean. They have been 

 distributed into fourteen genera. The 

 most remarkable, for the size or beauty 

 of the species, or for the use made of 

 them, are Sarcophyte, Lopkophytum, Om- 

 brophytum, Langodorffia, and Cynomorium. 



Balanophagi. The ancient feeders on acorns 

 and similar food. 



Bald. Destitute of pubescence or downy 

 appendages. 



Ball. The round central part of the flower 

 of the Stapelia, etc. 



Balsam. A name given to various gum- 



