508 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



perianth, and a simple style at summit stigmatiferous not enlarged. 

 The fruit is drupaceous, with monospermous putamens, and the oily 

 albumen envelopes an asile embryo, occupying about a third of its 

 height. The only species of the genus, L. hypogœa, 1 is a parasite, 8 

 with tuberous rhizome and ramified aerial branches, 3 surrounded by 

 a basilar volva covered with persistent imbricate scales, terminated 

 by a unisexual or bisexual cluster or spike. The male flowers are 

 pedicellate, sometimes intermixed with rudimentary gynEeciums, and 

 the female flowers are sessile and closely packed. It is a parasitic 

 plant inhabiting all tropical continental America. 



Thônningia sanguined* inhabits tropical western Africa; it has 

 generally been placed in the same group as Langsdorffia, although 

 the internal organization of its gynsecium is still unknown. Only 

 the tube which represents an epigynous perianth in the female flowers 

 is here much more elevated around the base of the style, and in the 

 male flowers, which have from 3-0 stamens with filaments united in 

 a fusiform cone, 5 the perianth is replaced by linear-subulate scales, 

 from two to six in number. It is a red-coloured parasitic plant, the 

 flowers of which are in short spikes or dioecious capitules. 



This family, as we have said, has had a larger extension than we 

 here assign to it ; a considerable number of other types have been 

 comprised in it, particularly those designated under the name of 

 Lophophyteœ, Helosideœ, and Scybalieœ, which have, principally in 

 the organs of vegetation, a great number of characters in common 7 

 with the genera we have here retained among the Balanophoraceœ. 

 But by their unilocular dicarpellar ovary and free central placenta, 

 the genera we have separated approach much nearer the Loranthaceœ,* 



1 Mart. he. cit. — L. janeirensia L. C. Rich. — • Pollen globular 3-gonal, smooth with three 



L. ruliginosa Wedd. — Thônningia mexicana verrucose prominences, scarcely visible. 



Liebm. Fork. SIcand. Natursf. Christ. (1841) 17, 6 Parasitus anonymus Isert, he. cit. 



180. — T. janeirensia Liebm. he. cit. — Seuflen- ' It must be remembered, moreover, that 



bergia Moritziami Kl. et Karst. ex LinntBn, xx. those characters are found in a great number of 



400. parasitic plants not green, to whatever natural 



: On several Palms, Figs, etc. group they belong {Orobrancheœ, Orchideœ, 



3 Yellow or reddish, rich in waxy matter. Monotropeœ, Lciinciceœ, etc.). 



< Vahl, Sansi. SeUk. Skrwt. vi. 124, t. 6.— 8 Without being able actually to insist upon 



Sch. et Thonn. Bcskr. 431.— Hook. r. Tram. this point, we indicate the numerous analogies 



Linn. Soc. xxii. 42, t. 3. — Eichl. Prodr. 141. — observed between the Loranthoceœ and Balano- 



Conophyta purpurascena Isert, Reis. 283. — Hie- phorete on the one hand and the Conifera on the 



niatostrobui Endl. Gen. 76. other. We know that the gynœcium of certain 



