306 Oliver. — -On Sar codes sanguined , Torr. 
eating structures ; the much-branched roots are associated 
with an investing fungal mycelium. All the shoots which 
appear above the soil are flowering shoots ; purely vegetative 
shoots do not occur. As in many other saprophytes, the 
vegetative organs are brightly coloured and the number of 
seeds produced is very great. The embryos also are very 
small, and the amount of food-material (endosperm) accom- 
panying them meagre. 
Histologically, the tissues are not so well differentiated as 
in plants with a normal metabolism. 
The vascular bundles are accompanied by large quantities 
of parenchyma; the sieve-tubes are small and not very nu- 
merous ; the vessels and tracheides of the wood narrow, and 
often only imperfectly lignified. Stomata are entirely wanting, 
and intercellular spaces infrequent. These points in histo- 
logical differentiation are associated with an absence of 
carbonic acid assimilation and a reduced transpiration-current. 
The whole of the succulent pith and cortex of the stem 
consists of very thin-walled parenchyma-cells, crowded with 
starch-granules during early stages of development ; it serves 
as a store of food- material to be used in the production of 
flowers and ripening of seed. 
The more detailed account of the various parts is treated 
in the following order; — (i) Roots, (2) Stem, (3) Leaves, 
(4) Morphology of Flower. 
1. The Roots . — The structure of these is of great interest 
in view of the general habit of this plant and of its dependence 
on organic matter in the substratum for much of its nutriment. 
The roots are attached in great quantities to the bases of the 
flowering shoots and form large and intricately woven masses 
of £ coralline ’ appearance h The specimen of Sarcodes on 
which this account is based had lost all but a relatively small 
portion of its roots before it reached my hands. It will be 
noted that the tuft represented in the portrait (Fig. 1) is only 
a small portion of the total cluster of roots. These roots 
1 I understand that the mass of roots attached to each specimen is often so large 
as to equal in bulk the whole remaining epigeal part of the plant. 
