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WILLIAM ALBERT SETCHELL,
of the pistillate plants, complexity of the tubercle, the number of inflores- cences arising from it, arrangement of the leaves (or bracts or divisions of the volvæ), and length of the pedicels of the staminate flowers. The more essential structures, such as non-warty (epustulate) rhizome, the trimerous staminate flower, and the coalescent bracts of the staminate inflorescence, remain uniform, and since the variations mentioned occur in each of a number of the collections, it seems proper to regard all as reasonable variants within the species and leads to a strong suspicion that the number of species assigned to the genus Balania has been increased without sound bases for so doing, since characters varying in the same collection have been emphasized as characteristic of one or another species described from interior China and even from Formosa and Japan.
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J. D. Hooker described Balanophora Harlandii as dioecious, with a small, lobed rhizome devoid of pustules; with the peduncle involucrate at its very base, with foliaceous bracts, with globose capitulum; and with the pistillate flowers sessile. He adds that it is a low species, 1-3 inches high, and is distinguished from all others by the peduncle being squamate only at the base. He compares it with B. dioica and B. fungosa, but, as is now realized, it differs from each of these species primarily and funda- mentally in the structure of its androecium. Curiously enough, Hooker says nothing of the androecium, although he figures it correctly, with the staminate flower, 3-lobed, and relatively long pedicellate. He distinctly states that the pistillate flowers are sessile, not with the bracteolate pedicel. Hooker's two figures (fig. 1, 2) of his staminate plants show only a single peduncle from each tubercle (or rhizome). His figures 3 and 4) of the staminate flower are very characteristic, but his figure (6) of the pistillate flowers and bracts is not sufficiently detailed and is even misleading. In order to present a fair idea of the differences (as well as the resemblances) among the plants received from Dr. Herklots, it seems best to present a series of photographic reproductions, together with some notes
on each collection. The first collection (dried plants) was not distinguished by a number. It will be designated here by the letter " 'A." The later collec- tions were numbered from 1 to 5, numbers 2, 4, and 5 having been collected on the Island of Hong Kong and numbers 1 and 3 on the adjacent mainland. Collection A was found growing on roots, Mr. Nicholson, in November, 1930." There were 4 specimens, all fairly young, just at the point of the emergence of the inflorescences from the tubercles (or rhizomes). In two of them the capitula were not yet uncovered but the other two show- ed them partially or completely free. One of the latter was pistillate, the other staminate. The latter stood about 1.5 inches high and was the tallest of the four (as yet not fully developed) plants. Each of the four showed a deeply lobed (or dichotomously (?) branched), non pustulate, tubercle or rhizome, thus differing from the simple plants illustrated by Hooker, at this stage, and the leaves (or bracts) appear to be concentrated at the very base of the erect stem. Collection 4 was made on High West on Hong Kong Island, October 19, 1931. It includes a single young plant. pistillate, with a deeply lobed, seemingly dichotomous rhizome, with 3 inflorescences pushing their way out (plate 6, bottom figure).
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It is
The Hong Kong Naturalist.
The Hong Kong Naturalist Supplement.
PRINTEO PT S. POST.
Plate 2
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No. 1.
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