A new Balanophera from Tenimber Islands
This short note by H. N. Ridley describes a new species of Balanophora (B. Micholitzii) collected from the Tenimber Islands, published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1903.
Summary
Ridley notes that the Tenimber Islands had been botanically neglected since H. O. Forbes’s 1882 visit, when his Balanophora specimens were lost in a fire. The new material was collected by Mr. Micholitz during a recent visit and preserved in formaline, which Ridley commends as superior to spirit for retaining the natural colour of these fleshy plants (p. 207).
The species is described with a small rounded rhizome, two or three stems bearing about eight orbicular white leaves, and a globose yellowish bisexual capitulum. Male flowers are arranged in two or three whorls with four oblong fleshy sepals and horse-shoe-shaped anthers; female flowers are obconic and clavate with numerous spadicles. Ridley places it as nearly allied to B. Zollingeri Fawcett from Salayer, south of Celebes, but notes it is much larger in all parts and has more distinctly club-shaped female flowers with longer stalks bearing well-developed spadicles (p. 207).