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NOTE ON GASTRODIA SESAMOIDES (R.Br.) 



By the Rev. W. Woolls, Ph.D., F.L.S. 



I noticed in the early part of November last year, and also 

 about the same time in the present year, several plants of this 

 leafless orchid growing at the roots of a blue-gum tree {Eucalyptus 

 globulus, Labill.) in Mr, Lester's garden at Burwood. Although 

 the gum-tree may be from ten to fifteen years old, no one ever 

 noticed before November of last year any orchids growing at its 

 roots, and yet it is highly probable that some of the bulbs of G. 

 sesamoides accompanied the young tree at its introduction into the 

 garden. One of the plants which I measured was over two feet 

 in height, with a raceme of dull white flowers several inches long, 

 and a fusiform fleshy root of more than six inches. R. Brown 

 1 egai-ded this orchid as parasitical, and Baron Mueller expresses a 

 similar opinion (see " System of Victorian Plants," Vol. I, p. 403), 

 or at all events that it is "epirhizal, like Epipogum Gmelini in 

 England." When I wrote last year to the late Mr. R. D. Fitz- 

 gerald, F.L.S., on the strange appearance of G. sesamoides in 

 Burwood, he replied, " I have found that orchid at the Fox Gully 

 near Lane Cove, the North Shore, Mittagong, and other places, 

 but I do not think it is a common species anywhere. As 

 Eucalyptus globulus is not one of our Eucalypts, I cannot under- 

 stand how the orchid could have been transplanted from the bush 

 and made its appearance in the garden. If the Eucalypt had 

 been a wild gum-tree, the fact of this orchid being found in such 

 a place would have gone to show that it is a parasite. I have 

 never found any great proof that Dipiodium, Galeola, and Gastrodia 

 are parasitical, though supposed to be so." So far as the last is 

 concerned, the tuberous roots do not appear parasitical, nor as 

 deriving any nourishment from the trees at whose roots they grow, 



