Cyrtandracee. | THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 293 
following orders. Cyrtandra consisted at first of a single species found by Forster in 
the island of Tanna. Dr. Jack discovered others at Sumatra, with some allied genera, 
which he formed into the family of Cyrtandracee, Lin. Trans. xiv. 23, described by 
Mr. Don under the name of Didymocarpee. Previous to this, a species of the family 
had been described by Vahl under the name of Rottlera, for which Sprengel substituted 
Henckelia; under which name Dietrich. Syst. Veg. has since brought together several 
plants, which by other botanists are arranged under different genera, indeed under 
different families. Several new genera have been described by Dr. Blume (Bydrag.) 
and others by Mr. Bentham, in his Scrophularinee Indice. 
The Cyrtandracee are now numerous in genera and species, and though restricted to 
the Old World, and chiefly abounding in its tropical islands, have a very wide distribution 
in latitude, as Streptocarpus Rhevii, Bot. Reg. 1173, is found at the Cape of Good 
Hope; the two genera, Dorcoceras and Rehmannia, found by Bungé in the north of 
China, belong, the former certainly, and the latter probably, as I am informed by 
Messrs. Bentham and Lindley, who have received specimens, to this family; and if 
Ramonda should be found really to belong to this family, it will be an additional 
instance of a single species of a tropical family extending into European regions, _ The 
tropical species abundant in Java and Sumatra, at Singapore and in Penang, extend 
along the Malayan Peninsula to Silhet and Pundooa, thence along the mountains to 
Nepal, Kemaon, and the Northern Himalayas, where a few may be seen at as great an 
elevation as between 7,000 and 8,000 feet in 30° and 31° of N. latitude. But it is only 
during the mild temperature and equable moisture of the rainy season that they are 
seen, when, instead of evaporation, there is always deposition of moisture, and the 
most delicate plants may remain unchanged for days and weeks. The rest of the year 
the seeds remain dormant, exposed to both the cold of winter and the heat of summer. 
But on the return of the dew-point atmosphere, they shoot up with the utmost luxu- 
riance, and form the richest ornaments of what at other seasons appeared the barest 
rocks. It is not surprising, therefore, that no species have been received from the dry 
climate of the northern face of the Himalaya. But it is unaccountable that so few species 
should have been discovered in the Indian Peninsula, consisting only of two species of 
Didymocarpus ; a doubtful Cyrtandra from the Travancore mountains; a Glossanthus 
from the same and Ceylon, and another species of the same genus from the Neelgherries. 
The genera confined to Java and the islands are Cyrtandra and Loxonia (Jack), 
Tromsdorffia, Agalmyla, Whitia, Rhynchotechum, Centronia, Kuhlia (Blume), Stauran- 
thera (Benth.). Aikinta (Br.), is found in the island of Timor and in Java. Glossanthus 
does not extend beyond Pundooa, where there are several species of LEschynanthus, 
but only one in Nepal, and also one of Epithema, Lysionotus ternifolia is found there, 
as well as in Kemaon; but the species of Didymocarpus, Chirita, Loxrotis, and 
Platystemma, are found all along the mountains. C. bifolia and P. violoides, two of 
the most ornamental, attain also the most northern limits, being found at Jurreepanee; 
Simla, &c.  Lovotis (Wulfenia, Wall.) obliqua approaches the nearest to Kunawur; 
Didymocarpus 
