COMPARISON OF THE SELANTHI .WITH OTHER PLANTS. 
63 
The Selantlii, so far as has been discovered, are much more 
limited, both in their numbers and their localities, than the fungi; 
and they do not require the same erratic power, or the same pro¬ 
vision against confusion. Hence they are flowering-plants, with 
the organization apparent, though still different from that of the 
flowering-plants, properly so called. In their texture they do 
contain vessels; but these vessels are fewer in proportion to the 
cellular matter, than in the ordinary flowering-plants ; and there¬ 
fore we may, without impropriety, describe them as cellular plants, 
with more or less of the vascular plant combined. 
In some, the tubular vessels are scarcely discernible; and in 
all they are few, and chiefly confined to the lower part of the 
stem, or the scales which envelope the flower-bud; and where 
those vessels appear, it is by no means certain that they are in 
any way connected with the nourishment, or other vital functions 
of the plant ; for like the flower of the mushroom, these plants 
appear to absorb their nourishment by the floral portion itself, in 
whatever form it may be developed. The parts of fructification 
are usually distinct; but in those which bear compound flowers, 
the one part is often abortive in one portion of them, and the 
other part in another portion. The seeds, too, are not in any one 
of the species perfect seeds, but something intermediate between 
seeds and spores. There is a distinction of embryo and albumen 
in them, though in some it is not easily made out; and while 
some seem furnished with two cotyledons, others appear to have 
only one. Thus they cannot easily be brought into the arrange¬ 
ment of the flowering-plants, according to any of the received 
systems ; and yet the perfection of their flowers, and the structure 
of their seeds, forbid their being classed among the flowerless ones. 
They appear to hold in the vegetable kingdom a place analogous 
to that of the marsupial animals among mammalia ; that is, they 
agree with one or other of the regular families in some respects, 
but differ from them in others. 
One of the most magnificent and peculiar of the whole tribe is 
the Rafflesice, which is found in the woods of the Oriental Archi¬ 
pelago. R. Arnoldi, the most magnificent hitherto discovered, 
is almost entirely flower. The natives call it Krubut , “ Great 
Flower;” or Ambun Ambun , “Wonder, wonder!” and it is 
not unworthy either appellation. Specimens have been seen, in 
. which each petal was a foot long, and the nectary the same in 
