15 ° Johnson . — On A rceuthobium Oxycedri . 
side by the enlarging endosperm, beneath the base of which it 
is visible as a yellowish patch of completely crushed cells, the 
walls of which are not easily made out. Reinaud’s 1 is the 
only account I have found of the dehiscence of the fruit, 
and to his description I must acknowledge my indebtedness 
in framing the explanation of the dehiscence I have suggested 
at the end of the description of the fruit. Unfortunately, 
Reinaud’s paper is not illustrated. He found the parasite 
growing equally well on Juniper us Oxycedri and J. communis 
in the woods of Sisteron. The female flowers are visible 
in September, and ripe fruits in November of the following 
year, by the end of which month they are all fallen. He 
says of the fruit, ‘It is a little more than two millimetres 
long, and not quite one millimetre broad. The lower 
part up to just beyond the middle is cylindrical, smooth, 
transparent, and of a pale yellowish green colour. Two 
longitudinal and diametrically opposite lines, the rudiments of 
the commissures, are visible through the transparent wall [the 
two vascular bundles of the perianth]. The seed is embedded 
almost entirely in this part in the midst of a colourless liquid. 
The upper cap-like part of the fruit is pulpy, opaque, greener, 
and conical. The fruit is detached from the plant at its 
articulation with the peduncle, by which operation a circular 
hole is formed. This dehiscence takes place suddenly with 
elasticity, the seed is forcibly ejected through the resulting 
opening by the help of the liquid in which it is found, and by 
which the pressure of the pericarp is communicated to it. In 
this way the seed is thrown more than a metre, carrying with 
it the viscid part of the “ umbilical cord.” It is mentioned 
that the dehiscence of the fruit in Momordica Elaterium is 
very similar (I have been struck quite sharply with its ejected 
seeds standing two and three yards off).’ 
Before attempting an explanation of the dehiscence I will 
supplement this description of macroscopic features of the 
1 M. Am. Reinaud de Fonvert, Note sur L Arceuthobium Oxycedri, in Annales 
des Scien. Nat., 3 e serie, T. vi (1846), p. 130. 
