"■ NAT. ORDER. ORCHIDE^. 73 



founded. Whoever studies tliem must bear in mind that their 

 fructification is always reducible to three sepals and three petals, 

 a column consisting of stamens crrovvn firmlv to one another, and 

 to a single style and stigma ; and, with this in view, he will have 

 no difficulty in understanding the organization of even the most 

 anomalous Cape species. For a long time it was supposed that 

 no deviation from the general structure existed, and that we had 

 not in Orchidete any very decided link between that fimily and 

 others; but the discovery of a remarkable Indian plant by Blume 

 and Wallick, called Apostasia by the former botanist, which with 

 many of the peculiarities of this order, is triandrous, with a regu- 

 lar corolla, and three locular fruit, seems to show that even in this 

 tribe there are gradations which tend to destroy the value of the 

 technical differences of botanists. It does not, however, appear 

 to me certain that this genus, although referred to by Blume as 

 belonging to Orchideae, is not really a different tribe. 



Some species of this beautiful family of plants are to be found 

 in all parts of the world, except upon the very verge of the frozen 

 zone, and in climates remarkable for their dryness. In Europe, 

 Asia and North America, they are found growing in marshes, and 

 in meadows ; in the drier parts of Africa they are either rare or 

 unknown ; at the Cape of Good Hope they abound in similar situ- 

 ations as in this country ; but in the hot, damp parts of the East 

 and West Indies, in Madagascar and the neighboring islands, in 

 the damp and humid forests of Brazil, and on the lower moun- 

 tains of Nipal, these Orchideous plants flourish in the greatest 

 vari -ty and profusion, some kinds no longer seeking their nutri- 

 ment from the soil, but clinging to the trunks and hmbs of trees, 

 to stones and bare rocks, where they vegetate among ferns and 

 other shade-loving plants, in countless thousands. Of the epiphy- 

 tic class, one only is found so far north as South Carolina, and 

 most commonly found growing with the Magnolia, if we except a 

 sii gle specimen of Japan, which appears to have a climate ])c- 



