PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 235 
are short, 1 to 34 in. long, thin, and having usually three joints. 
The plant commonly grows on black-butt and other Eucalypts, 
and on the pine (Podocarpus elata). On the Paterson River, 
Hunter District, I found the same type very plentiful on iron- 
barks. I fastened the plant on a block of wood, and it grew 
and flowered well for three years. I then removed it to a com- 
mon earthenware pot, which had drainage at the bottom, then 
a layer of leaf-mould, then one of rotten bark, on which the roots 
were placed and packed with moss. In a couple of months the 
plant came into active growth, and the new pseudo-bulbs were 
remarkable for their thickness. Each succeeding year the young 
pseudo-bulbs were thicker and finer, so that now the plant looks 
like a small rock lily (D. speciosum). But since it. was placed 
under these conditions the plant has never flowered. Fig. 2 
shows a pseudo-bulb of this plant. 
There can be no doubt but that the remarkable alteration in 
form and habit of the plant is due to the change from the natural 
condition, in which the plant derived a scanty supply of nourish- 
ment from the rain trickling down the tree trunk on which it was 
seated, and from the vapour contained in the air, which the aerial 
roots absorbed, to the artificial conditions, under which it received 
a plentiful supply from the rotting bark and leaf-mould and the 
frequent waterings it received. The ceasing to blossom is not 
uncommon in plants when the vegetative system is highly 
nourished, the reproductive system becoming less active or 
ceasing to develop altogether. 
Here, then, we have an example of great change produced by 
artificial alteration of environment. It happens also in the case 
of the rock lily, as the late Mr. R. D. Fitzgerald some years ago 
showed me some abnormally large plants grown under the 
stimulus of manure and water. 
But there is also a great difference in plants which live under 
differing natural conditions. On the northern coast rivers of 
New South Wales the plant has an altogether different appear- 
ance (which, however, does not extend to the flowers). I am not 
aware of the boundaries, but Mr. Fitzgerald says (a) that south 
of the Macleay and Hastings only the first form is found, and the 
second form extends north into Queensland. 
In this form of the plant the pseudo-bulbs are about the same 
thickness as in the southern form, nearly that of a lead-pencil. 
(Mr. Fitzgerald says the southern form is thicker in proportion, 
but I have not observed this). They are, however, very much 
longer, being from 6 to 15 in. in length, and having six joints at 
least (Fig. 3.). The leaves are, if anything, smaller in propor- 
tion. In all the specimens I have seen from the Bellingen River 
and Queensland they are the same shape and proportion, twice 
(a) Fitzgerald, R. D., Australian Orchards, Vol. I., Part 2. 
