Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/589

Natural Orders.] Maranteæ, or Canneæ, an order at present referred to 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. Buchannan, in Upper Nepaul; of Dendrobium moniliforme, observed by Kæmpfer, and Thunberg, in Japan, near Nagasaki: and of Epidendrum conopseum, 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 Cymbidium are found in 34° S. lat.; but this is probably about their southern limit in that country, no species having been met with on any part of its South coast. They have, however, been observed in a considerably higher latitude in New Zealand, in the northern island of which several species were collected by Sir Joseph Banks, in about 38° S. lat., and Epidendrum autumnale of Forster grows in the neighbourhood of Dusky Bay, in upwards of 45° S. lat.

I am not acquainted with the limit of this section in South America; but in South Africa, at the Cape of Good Hope none of those, at least, tl^tt are parasitical on trees, have been observed.