may be called the type of Monocotyledones, that is, a regular flower with ternary division of its envelope, stamina, and cells or placentæ of the fruit.
I have attempted a similar approximation of true Scitamineæ[1] whose processes crowning the ovarium, and usually two in number, form the complement of the stamina.
Maranteæ of Canneæ,[2] an order at present referred to [575 Scitamineæ, may also be reduced to this type; they differ, however, from Scitamineæ in the mutual relation of their barren and fertile stamina, somewhat as Cypripedium does from the other genera of Orchideæ; except that in Maranteæ the imperfection is greater, a single lobe only of one of the lateral stamina having the appearance of an anthera and producing pollen.
It is remarkable that so very few Orchideæ of Terra Australis belong to that section of the order with angular elastic pollen and adnate anthera; this section being not only the most numerous in Europe, but existing in an equal proportion, though singularly modified, at the Cape of Good Hope.
Of another section of the order, formerly comprehended under the Linnean genus Epidendrum, most of which, though not properly parasitical, grow upon trees, several species, chiefly belonging to Dendrobium, are found in New Holland. In the northern hemisphere very few plants of this section that grow on trees have been observed beyond the tropic. The only exceptions to this, that I am acquainted with, consist of two species of a genus related to Dendrobium, discovered by Dr. Buchanan, in Upper Nepaul;[3] of Dendrobium moniliforme, observed by Kæmpfer and Thunberg, in Japan, near Nagasaki; and of Epidendrum conopseum,[4] which, according to Mr. William Bartram, grows in East Florida, in lat. 28° N.
In some parts of the southern hemisphere this section appears to have a more extensive range. On the east coast of New Holland several species of Dendrobium and
- ↑ Prodr. fl. Nov. Holl. 305.
- ↑ Loc citat. 307.
- ↑ Epidendrum præcox and Epidendrum humile. Smith exot. bot. tabb. 97 and 98.
- ↑ Hort. Kew, ed. 2, vol. 5, p. 219.
