39.2 ACCOUNT OF A NEW GENUS OF PLANTS,
ledonous, even in plants which, from their other characters, are referable to dicotyledonous, or at least to monocotyle- donous families.
227] In these points the structure of Bafflesia remains to be ascertained. In the mean time, however, if it be con- sidered as a parasite, and as likely to agree with the other plants of the tribe in the state of its em])ryo, it may be remarked, with reference to the question of its affinities, that such a structure would approximate it rather to Asarince than to PassiforecB.
My principal and concluding observation relates to the modes of union between the stock and the parasite. These vary in the different genera and species of the tribe, which may be divided into such as are entirely dependent on the stock during the whole of their existence, and such as in their more advanced state produce roots of their own.
Among those that are in all stages absolutely parasitic, to which division Bafflesia would probably belong, very o-reat differences also exist in the mode of connection. In some of those that I have examined, especially two species of Balanoiohora} the nature of this connection is such, as can only be explained on the supposition that the germina- ting seed of the parasite excites a specific action in the stock the result of which is the formation of a structure, either wholly or in part, derived from the root, and adapted to the support and protection of the undeveloped parasite ; analogous therefore to the production of galls by the punc- ture of insects.
On this supposition, the connection between the flower of Bafflesia and the root from which it springs, though considerably different from any that I have yet met with, may also be explained. But until either precisely the same kind of union shall have been observed in plants known to 228] be parasitic, or, which vrould be still more satisfactory, until the leaves and fructification belono-ino- to the root to
DO
which Bafflesia is attached shall have been found, its being
- Balanophora fungosa of rorster, aud B. clioica, an unpublished species,
lately sent by Dr. Wallich from Nepaul, where it was discovered by Dr. Hamilton, and also found in Java by Dr. Horsfield.
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