OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 277 



place. Our Eucalypts and a few others of our timber trees are 

 sought after for planting in all parts of the Globe, where there is 

 the least chance of their succeeding. Tree after tree is now 

 being brought into use, and as each becomes better known, 

 growing the more appreciated. In our early days of colonial 

 life little was really known of the flora of Australia, although 

 many of the plants were named and classified. The writings of 

 the few botanists who had approached the subject were scattered 

 and confused. But, thanks to the persevering zeal of Baron von 

 Mueller of Victoria, aided by a few others, these early writings 

 have been brought together, and the Flora carefully collected 

 and preserved, by which means the way has been paved for the 

 grand work now in course of publication by G. Bentham, Esq., a 

 gentleman of world-wide reputation as a botanist. With this work, 

 the Flora Australiensis, at hand, together with the various writings 

 of Baron Mueller, the botanical student of the present day has 

 his path cleared of many troubles and perplexities. Yet he will find 

 difficulties still in determining his plants, some being caused by 

 the great diversity of form assumed by the same plant as found 

 within or without the tropics. In the Orchids this is very 

 marked. No one seeing for the first time Dendrobium tetrago- 

 num, A. Cunn., in the tropics would think it was identical with 

 the more southern plant ; the same may be said of D. tereti- 

 folium, R. Br. ; both plants being so much finer in the north. 

 It will be remembered that it was this deviation from the normal 

 form which led Sir W. J. Hooker, when he first flowered our 

 common variety of D. speciosum, Sin., to suppose it a new 

 species. 



I also found on the ranges near Cardwell, a well-marked 

 variety of this species, and under the impression of its being a 

 distinct species described it under the name of D. fusiforme. 

 This variety differs from all others in the whole plant being more 

 lax in its growth. The stems vary from 3 to 12 inches in 

 height, are quite fusiform, deeply corrugated, often of a dark 

 color, and at times having a tendency to form pseudo-bulbs at 

 their base ; the leaves are from 2 to 7, distichous at the summit 



