510 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



The organs of vegetation have been the object of numerous re- 

 searches. 1 These plants, of a white, yellow, red, or brown colour, 

 are generally of a fleshy consistence, and their tissues are often filled 

 with a waxlike substance,- starch, 3 or an astringent juice which gives 

 them certain therapeutic properties. 4 They are perennial or more 

 rarely monocarpous. The subterranean stem or rhizome is tuberous, 

 simple or lobed, sometimes cylindrical or branched ; it fixes itself 

 directly to the roots of the foster plant, penetrates its substance, and 

 attaches itself to its tissues in various ways, 5 without, however, 

 uniting with them by true suckers ('?). It is parenchymatous and 

 traversed in different directions by vascular bundles, forming a system 

 sometimes very ramified and complicated. The surface of the rhi- 

 zome, in Balanophora, bears papillae consisting of simple or divided 

 masses of cellular tissue, traversed by a passage ; they are very 

 numerous and in form of a cro»3 in B. dioica, and are supposed to 

 be intimately connected with ihe respiration of the plant. 7 The 

 true stomata have not been observed ; there are rarely hairs, which 

 exist however in certain Langsdorffia and on the Auriferous axes of 

 TJiiinningia. Weddell describes the fibro-vascular bundles of the 



1 Tratt. LinnœaSxi. 194. — TJnger, Ann. TIV/v. 

 Mns. ii. 38. — Gœpp. Nov. Acta Acad. Nat. Car. 

 xviii. Suppl. i. 229; xxii. 117. — Poleck, ibid. 

 xxii. 161. — Griff. Trans. Linn. Soc. xx. 96. — 

 Wedd. Mém. sur le Cynomorium (see p. 503, note 

 3). — Hook. f. Ttans. Linn. Soc. xxii. 2, t. 3, 4, 

 6, 8.— Chat. Anat. t. 93, 95, 99, 105 (part).— 

 Solms, Pringsh. Jattrb. vi. 529. 



2 J. Hooker indicated the wax cellules in 

 Salanophora (Trans. Linn. Soc. xxii. t. 4), and 

 ElOHLER (Mart. Fl. Bras. Balanoph. t. 2) in 

 Langsdorffia. This substance exists also in 

 Thbnnhigia. It has been called balanophorumi 

 and balanophoriue. It renders L. hypogcea so 

 combustible that tapers are made of it at Bogota, 

 and torches in many parts of Columbia. 



3 In Cynomorium, Sarcophyte, Mystropetalon. 



* Cynomorium coccincum yields by pressure a 

 reddish, bitter, and styptic juice described by 

 Boccone as astringent in cases of sores, con- 

 tusions, hemorrhage, dysentery, etc. The 

 Knights of Malta are said to have prepared 

 from it a. powerful remedy for wounds received 

 in battle. A dental opiate has been prepared 

 from it, and an astringent decoction said to be 

 successfully prescribed for certain ulcers. 



6 J. Hooker has classed the Balanop/wmr, 



according to the mode of insertion on the foster 

 plant, in three groups : those in which the 

 vascular fascicles of the foster root terminate 

 definitely in the tissue of the parasite at some 

 distance from the point of insertion ; the vas- 

 cular systems of the two plants being in no part 

 in immediate affinity ; those in which the con- 

 nexion between parasite and nurse is solely by 

 the intervention of a cellular tissue ; those in 

 which the fascicles of the foster root are con- 

 tinued with those of the rhizome. Wedoell 

 has pointed out that the two latter modes of 

 insertion are united in Cynomorium. He de- 

 scribes, in the latter, radical suckers and tuber- 

 cular suckers. The former have only a central 

 vascular fascicle ; the latter correspond to grafts 

 on the largest roots. " Nothing more variable 

 than the disposition of the tissues in these 

 grafts." 



6 The disposition of these fascicles becomes 

 more regular in the cylindrical rhizomes. 



7 Junghuhn says (A'ov. Acta xviii. Suppl. 

 223), and the observation has been constantly 

 repeated, that B. glabra does not bear these 

 papillae except in cases where it springs from 

 the same root as B. elongata. 



