216 MR. R. A. ROLFE ON THE APOSTASIER. 
therefrom in several important points. These two tribes I have 
regarded as forming one diverging branch of the Order, not very 
far removed in structure from what may be considered the 
ancestral Orchideous prototype, and worthy to be looked upon 
as a distinct suborder,— Diandre. The other diverging branch 
comprises the remainder of the Order, the suborder Monandre, 
more highly specialized than the Diandre,and divisible into 
several distinct tribes ; too intimately connected, however, to ‘be 
considered Suborders. Certain it is that there is no other gap 
anywhere in the Order of anything like such importanee as that 
which separates Monandre from Diandre. Lastly, I do not 
think Apostasie@ can be maintained as even a Suborder (much 
less a distinct Order) apart from Cypripediee. On the other 
hand, I think these two groups are too distinct to be merged to- 
gether in a single homogeneous tribe, and far better regarded 
as forming two distinct tribes of the Suborder Diandre. 
MonzPnoroax. 
General habit.—The species of Apostasiea are terrestrial plants, 
from about one to three feet in height, generally growing in 
shady woods and thickets. They produce underground creeping 
rhizomes, shortly jointed, and elothed with numerous sheathing 
braets. "These appear to push out for some distance, and then 
throw up an erect leafy shoot, from near the base of which is 
produced a tuft of several thickish, hard, wiry roots. These 
stems in Apostasia are nearly, and in some cases over, a foot high, 
elothed with numerous, more or less recurved, narrow, grass-like 
leaves, and bearing at the apex a more or less spreading or re- 
curved, simple or branched raceme of small yellow flowers. In 
JNewwiedia the leaf-bearing portion of the stem is generally 
shorter, and thus the tuft of leaves is formed near the ground. 
The leaves are fewer and larger, suberect, and somewhat like 
those of Curculigo or Veratrum in appearance. On reaching the 
flowering stage the stems lengthen above the leaves, sometimes 
but little, at others very considerably, the apex of the raceme of 
N. Lindleyi apparently being at least three feet from the ground. 
The flowering portion of the stem bears a number of much smaller 
leaves, which pass gradually into the bracts, the inflorescence 
itself being a strictly erect, spike-like, many-flowered raceme of 
medium-sized flowers, also yellow in colour. 
The Stem—In all the species the stem is erect and simple, 
