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ON THE FEMALE FLOWER AND FRUIT OF
240] SUPPLEMENT.
To render the account of Rafflesia Arnoldi more complete, I shall add the distinguishing characters of the order, tribes, genera and species of Rafflesiaceæ with which I am acquainted. These characters, which form the chief part of the present supplement, as well as the notes to the original communication, have been written since November last.
The paper itself is printed as it was read in June 1834, a very few slight alterations, and those chiefly verbal, excepted.[1]
- ↑ The following brief abstract was publislied in the Philosophical Magazine for July, 1834:— "Linnean Society. "June 17. — A paper was read 'On the Female Flower and Fruit of Raffiesia, with Observations on its Affinities, and on the Structure of Hydnora By Robert Brown, Esq., V.P.L.S. "The author's principal object in this paper is to complete his account of Rafflesia Arnoldi, the male flower of which he described in a former communication, published in the 13th volume of the Society's Transactions; and, in connection with the question of its place in a natural arrangement, he introduces a more detailed description and figures of Hydnora africana, than have hitherto been given. The drawings of Rafflesia which accompany the paper are by Francis Bauer, Esq., and those of Hydnora by the late Mr. Ferdinand Bauer. "From a comparison of Rafflesia with Hydnora and Cytinus, he is confirmed in the opinion expressed in his former paper, but founded on less satisfactory evidence, that these three genera (to which Brugmansia of Blume is now to be added), notwithstanding several remarkable peculiarities in each, may all be referred to the same natural family ; and this family named by him Rafflesiaceæ, he continues to regard as being most nearly allied to Asarinæ. "He does not, however, admit an arrangement lately proposed by M. Endlicher, and adopted by Mr. Lindley, by whom these genera are included in the same natural class with Balanophoreæ of Richard ; an approximation founded on their agreement in the structure of embryo, and on the assumed absence of spiral vessels. On this subject he remarks, that in having a homogeneous or acotyledonous embryo, they essentially accord, not only with many other plants, parasitical on roots, which it has never been proposed to unite with them, as Orbanche, &c., but also with Orchideæ their association with which would be still more paradoxical. And with respect to the supposed peculiarity in their vascular structure, he states that he has found spiral vessels not only in Rasfflesia (in which he had formerly denied their existence), and in Hydnora and Cytinus, but likewise in all the Balanophoreæ examined by him, particularly Cynoiucrinm and Helosis, as Dr. von Martius had long since done in Langsdorfia, and Professor Meyer very recently in Hydnora. 'In his observations on the ovulum of Rafflesia, he gives a view of its early
