50 GENERAL REMARKS ON THE 



Cymbidinm are found in 34° S. lat. ; but this is probably 

 about their southern Kmit in that country, no species hav- 

 ing been met with on any part of its south coast. They 

 have, however, been observed in a considerably higher lati- 

 tude in New Zealand, in the northern island of which seve- 

 ral species Avere collected by Sir Joseph Banks, in about 

 38° S. lat., and Epic! end mm autmimale of Forster grows 

 in the neighbourhood of Dusky Bay, in upwards of 45° 

 S. lat. 



I am not acquainted wdth the limit of this section in 

 South America ; but in South Africa, at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, none of those, at least, that are parasitical on trees, 

 have been observed. 



576] ASPHODELE^.^ In this order I include the greater 

 part, both of Asphodeleae and Asparageae of Jussieu, dis- 

 tinguishable from each other only by texture and dehiscence 

 of fruit ; differences wdiich, as they separate Stypandra from 

 Dianella, and Eustrephus from Luzuriaga, cannot be ad- 

 mitted to be of more than generic importance. 



I confess myself unable to point out satisfactory distin- 

 guishing characters for this order, in my description of 

 which, however, I have noted two circumstances, neither of 

 them indeed peculiar to the order, but both of them ap- 

 pearing to extend through the whole of it ; namely, the 

 reduction of stamina from six to tln-ee, wliich occasionally 

 occurs, constantly taking place by the suppression of those 

 opposite to the outer series of th^perianthium; and the 

 existence of the black crustaceous testa or outer integument 

 of the seed. It is probable I have given too much weight 

 to this latter circumstance, in combining, partly on account 

 of it, genera so very dissimilar as x\nthericum, Xanthor- 

 rhoea, and Astelia. 



XanthorrJicea, which I have included in Asphodeleoe, is 

 in habit one of the most remarkable genera of Terra x\us- 

 tralis, and gives a peculiar character to the vegetation of 

 that part of the country where it abounds. This genus is 

 most frecpieut in the principal parallel, but it extends to the 



' Frodr.Jl, Nov. IIolL 274. 



