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Pescott, Xotes on the Orchids of Victnria. loq 



NOTES ON THE ORCHIDS OF VICTORIA. 

 By E. E. Pescott, F.L.S., F.R.H.S. 



[Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, nth Oct., 1920.) 

 Historical. — -Apart from the purely botanical accounts and 

 descriptions of our orchids which appeared in early botanical 

 works, the first collected record of Victorian orchids appeared 

 in the early pages of the Victorian Naturalist from the pen of 

 that well-known naturalist and orchid enthusiast, Charles 

 French, sen., the father of our Club. The first article appeared 

 in vol. i.. No. i (January, 1884), and the twelfth in vol. iv.. 

 No. 4 (August, 1887). Short articles had appeared from time 

 to time prior to this in the Southern Science Record and other 

 journals from the pens of Baron von Mueller, J. ^I'Kilibin, 

 and others. 



In his excellent series of articles French gave an account of 

 seventy-five species which, up to that time, had been collected 

 in this State, supplementing his account with records and 

 instructions for the growing of these orchids — a phase of work 

 in which he excelled when at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. 

 He recorded seventy-five species, three of which were epiphytes. 



In Mueller's " Key to the System of Victorian Plants " (1888) 

 seventy-eight species are hsted, three of which arc epiphytes. 

 From this list one species {Pterostylis aphylla) must be omitted, 

 leaving seventy-seven species known to 1888. 



In. the Victorian Naturalist for June, 1895, Charles French, 

 jun., pubhshed " Observations on the Flowering Times and 

 Habitats of Some Victorian Orchids," in which he lists about 

 eighty species and varieties. The list is not complete, but gives 

 the names and localities of all the species which that inde- 

 fatigable collector had noted. 



Von Mueller's first " Census of Australian Plants," pubhshed 

 in 1882, gives a list of seventy-three species, and the second 

 edition, published in 1889, hsts eighty-two species. 



The Plant Names Committee, which was appointed by this 

 Club to prepare a vernacular list of native plants, issued its 

 first list in July, 1911, in the Victorian Journal of Agriculture. 

 Here ninety-four species were listed, having, for the first time, 

 common names attached. Four species were subsequentlv 

 removed from this list, two being recorded in error (Praso- 

 phyllum Rcichcnhachi and Caladenia discoidea), one [Pterostylis 

 Mackibbini) having been described as a synonym, and one 

 (C. Cairnsiana) being erroneously named. 



Thus progress was being made in the discovery of new 

 species as the years passed ; and it is worth recording that the 

 discovery of a considerable number of these new species was 

 due mainly to the good work of Charles French, jun. 



