52 REVISION OF THE NATURAL ORDER HEDERACE, 
by the mail steamer in May 1867, and I have now received a letter 
from Dr. Hooker, dated July 31st, acknowledging the receipt of both 
collections at Kew, explaining the cause of the error in not acknow- 
ledging the receipt of the first collection, and some interesting infor- 
mation on the management of these singular epiphytes. Dr. Hooker 
says, “ Your letter of May 20th has solved a great mystery—the very 
curious plants so much talked of by Mr. Moore, and now by yourself, 
arrived in due course full six months ago; but being only previously 
known at Malacea, and the absence of any announcement of the vessel 
they were to come by, I never for a moment supposed that they were 
from Australia. The two plants are allied genera of Rudiacee, both 
described in De Candolle, Myrmecodia and Hydnophytum. They are 
plants we have often written to Malacca for, but never obtained, and 
naturally supposed, when they arrived, they were from some of our 
Straits correspondents. Their discovery in Australia is most remark- 
able. the first batch received, the Myrmecodia armata, and of 
the box now arrived, the Hydnophytum formicarum, are alive. I am, 
indeed, obliged to you for these most curious plants. I shall be very 
glad of another consignment of them. You should, I find, keep them 
in a damp shady place. I wonder if the ants that infest them at Cape 
York are of the same genera as the Straits’ ones!” 
Sections of the tubers have been sent to the Australian Museum.— 
November 4, 1867. 
REVISION OF THE NATURAL ORDER HEDERACE. 
By BERTHOLD Seemann, Pu.D., F.L.S. 
(Continued from Vol. V.) 
On THE Genus PaNax. 
Panoz has been made one of the great lumber-rooms of our science, 
and none of the modern botanists have assigned to it intelligible 
limits. Linnæus referred ¢hree species to it, representing two generic 
` types, and his generic name ought to go with the majority of species 
ntatives of both genera had, however, been previously discovered 
in Australasia, viz. Viti, about 8° further south than Cape York. (Conf. Seem. 
Fi. Vitiensis, p. 138.)—EDITOR. 
