ever material was available to the researchers, as evidenced by 

 their long list of exsiccatae, the usefulness of which, impressive 

 as they appear, all add up to the value of a hay stack. 



Remarks on the tribe Vanilleae. 



When 



a separate group next to the orchidaceae, he characterized it 

 with one sentence: "Seeds with tight skin" versus "Seeds in a 

 loose skin". The following year he gave a full description of this 



family with em 



m 



from Orchidaceae because of their succulent valveless fruit, of 

 their seeds not having the loose testa which exists in all true 

 Orchidaceae, and of their peculiar habit; to which may be added 



aromatic 



sperma [now 



the order [now = family] 



the testa as in common 



form 



Of course Vanillaceae as a 



family was abandoned by Lindley himself in 1840. 



The succulent, indehiscent fruits with sclerotic seeds found 

 in all Vanilla species are the essential characters of the founda- 

 tion upon which the vanilla line must rest, regardless at what 

 level above the genus it is studied. One of the early rewards of 

 the above mentioned systematic review of genera and species is 

 the recognition of these foundation characters in Cyrtosia 

 plants. The genus itself was described by Blume in 1825, but 

 since 1883 it was successfully buried in Galeola by Bentham and 

 Hooker notwithstanding Blume's additional observation made 

 in 1837. The fruits and seeds of Rhizanthella, as already men- 

 tioned above, are also fully in line with the original circumscrip- 

 tion set forth by Lindley. 



While 



Rhizanthella are 



unilocular with parietal placentation— contrary to the claims of 

 Burns-Balogh and Funk that Vanilla has a "three chambered 

 ovary"— Palmorchis is now known to have a three locular ovary 

 with axile placentation, while the seeds are those of the Vanilla 

 tvne. These crucial details of Palmorchis were not known to me 



226 



