r)()4 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



style. In the single cell of the ovary is a parietal and superior pla- 

 centa supporting a descending, anatropous ovule, reduced to a nucule.^ 

 The fruit is drupaceous with a fleshy layer generally very thin, 

 monospermous putamen, and the seed filling the cavity of the latter 

 consists of an abundant oily albumen, in the upper portion of which 

 is lodged a very small embryo.^ 



Balanophora consists of fungiform fleshy and parasitical plants ^ of 



very peculiar habit. They have a simple, lobed or ramified tuberous 



rhizome, often sprinkled with star-lobed prominences from which 



, . sprint the aerial branches, 



coloured yellow or red and 

 covered with scaly bracts, 

 alternate, or opposite and 

 connate, with parallel ner- 

 vures; terminated by a 

 cylindro-conical, claviform 

 or globular floriferous recep- 

 tacle, clothed with flowers^ 

 of one (fig. 482) or both 

 sexes. In the latter case, 

 the males are below, and 

 the females above, much 

 more numerous and smaller. 

 '■^ffelie'-Z.r'- Tie males are pedicellate, 

 often reflexed and accom- 

 panied with axillate bracts. The females are in small spikes often 

 terminating in an enlarged, globular or claviform body.^ A dozen ^ 



Fig. 484. Female flowers. 



sometimes little developed, with the exterior 

 <*oat smooth. 



* Suspended by a unicellular funicle, it is 

 ^'omposed of a nucule formed of a small number 

 of cellules. (On the structure of the gynaecium 

 fiee HoFMEiST. PrixgsK Jahrb. i. 110, t. 18; iV^' 

 Beitr, 585, t. 14, 15; Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 4, xi 

 49, t. 5, 6, fig. 4«-56.) 



2 It is formed of a very small number of 

 cellules (often two or three). 



•* On the roots of very various trees {Acer, 

 Quercus, Hibiscus, Ficus (?), Eucalyptus, Firei/a, 

 lliibaudia, Araliacecc, etc.). 



•* Yellow or red. 



5 It has been considered as the summit of the 

 secondary axis, and the name of spadicel has 

 been given to it (Eichler). 



6 W. Sjnc. V. 177 {Cpi07norium). — Bl. Enum. 

 PI. Jar. i. 87.— ScHOTT et Endl. Melet. 12.— 

 JuNGH. Nov. Acta Acad. Nat. Cur. xviii. Suppl. 

 i. 203, t. 1, 2.— RoYLE,//'/. PI. Eimal. 330, t. 99. 

 — Thw. Enum. PI. Zeyl. 293.— Arx. Hook. Icon. 

 t. 205, 206 {Lang.^dorffia). — Ung. Anv. Wien. Mus. 

 a. t. 2.— Becc. Att. Soc. Ital. Sc. Nat. Mil. xi. 

 197 ; N. Giorn. Bot. Ital. i. 65, t. 2-4.— Benth. 

 Ft. Austral, vi. 232. 



