66 



branous texture gives them a pellucid crystalline ap- 

 pearance, especially when they are covered with dew. 

 In the dry parts of Eiji, one of the silver-leaved ferns 

 (cheilanthes farinosa) may occasionally he found grow- 

 ing in the crevices of the rocks, and its pretty relation, 

 cheilanthes tenuifolia, which, with pteris ensiformis, 

 and pteris geraniifolia, abounds in dry grassy fields, 

 and comes up after the rains. While festoons of lygo- 

 dium reticulatum wa Tealou (holy creeper), and tassels 

 of lycopodiums phlegmaria, and nummuiarifolium, 

 to 5 feet in length, hang from almost every tree, the 

 surface of the ground below is clad with one dense 

 mass of beautiful selaginellas, some of which attain a 

 height of 4 or 5 feet. 



There are not many different species of orchids in 

 Fiji, but the various members of several genera are 

 well represented, and are not unworthy of notice. A 

 species of calanthe, having a spike of white flowers 

 spotted with red, which grows among grass, is common 

 and beautiful. Another species, of the same genus, 

 with snow white flowers, abounds in shady forests in 

 wet and dry localities ; and a third, having beautiful 

 orange coloured flowers, sessile and clustered together 

 on a short spike like the flowers of a hyacinth, was 

 found in one place near the top of Voma Peak. 



Several species of dendrobium are worthy of culti- 

 vation ; these are mohlianmn, tokai, Gordoni (n. sp. 

 Le M. Moore), and Ilornci (n. sp. Le M. Moore). 

 The latter was found in the island of Rabi, grow- 

 in- on a tree on the sea-shore, where it was occa- 

 sionally bathed in the salt spray of the breaking 

 waves. Dendrobium Gordoni was found in Samoa, 

 growing on a pandanus tree in a swamp, in the island 



