BALANOPHORA CEJE. 511 



^„„.. „.,„„,.,,,„ 



|Bflexuose and irregularly distributed in the interior of the cellular 

 tissue, so as closely to resemble the bundles of the same nature in a 

 Monocotyledonous stem from which they are always distinguished 

 by their parallelism." He has seen these bundles continued from 

 the body of the rhizome to its ramifications. The bundle is formed 

 of two difi'erent elements : elongate cellules analogous to young 

 woody fibre and containing fecula ; and, at the narrowest part of the 

 bundle, rayed or scalelike vessels passing even to reticulate vessels. 

 The parenchyma of a large number of Balanophoracece is permeated 

 by hard or stony cellules or fibro-cellules, punctuate, and with walls 

 traversed by numerous channels in the direction of their thickness ; 

 they abound especially in Langsdorffia hypogcea, certain Balaiiophora, 

 etc. In Langsdorffia, Eichler^ has seen branches of a rhizome 

 formed of a parenchyma consisting of elongate cellules in a vertical 

 direction, and traversed lengthwise by twenty or thirty thin fibro- 

 vascular bundles, disposed on a transverse circular or elliptical sec- 

 tion, according as the organ is cylindrical or compressed, nearly 

 equidistant from the centre and the surface, here and there anasto- 

 mose, but corresponding to the general plan of organization of Dico- 

 tyledons. The vessels are loosely reticulate, rayed or punctuate, but 

 not annular or spiral. Prosenchymatous cellules, containing proto- 

 plasm and voluminous cytoblasts, are interposed with the vessels. 

 Unger named this tissue pseudoparenchyma. The cellular tissue is 

 elongate in a vertical direction and consists of smaller elements near 

 the surface. Those quite superficial are often elongated in subulate 

 hairs, formed of two cellules placed end to end. The soft cellules 

 of the parenchyma are ordinarily punctuate. 



J. Hooker^ resumed and verified the principal points of the internal 

 structure of Balanophora^ He thinks that in many species of this 

 genns the rhizome continues to grow for many years, and after 

 having put forth numerous floriferous branches in a single season, 

 dies the following autumn, whilst in B. involucrata, for example, the 

 rhizome may live a long time and flower every year. It requires 

 several weeks for an aerial branch to emerge from the rhizome and 



1 Arch. Mus. x. 277, t. 26. 3 Hook. f. loc. cit. 13, t. 2, fig. 4. 



2 EiCHL. Mart. Fl. Bras. Balanoph. t. 2, fig. ^ See also, on this question, the memoir of 

 3, 5, 6, l\.—'S.ooY..Y. Trans. Linn. Soc. xxii. Gceppert, cited above, principally plate II . fig. 

 t. 2. 28** and 30*. 



