FLORA OF TASMANIA, 
Crass MONOCOTYLEDONES. 
Nat. Orb. I. ORCHIDEE. 
Onr of the most beautiful and interesting Natural Orders of Australia, abundant in the extratropical 
latitudes of that continent, and especially in Tasmania, but extremely rare in the tropical. The great ma- 
jority are terrestrial and tuberous-rooted, but there are a few epiphytical ones, all belonging to the tribe 
Vandee, on the warm and tropical eastern coasts, and one inhabits Tasmania which has been found no- 
where else. About 200 Australian Orchidee are known, which are, with few exceptions, endemic. The 
exceptions are Spiranthes australis (S. Nove-Zelandix, mihi), found in New Zealand, India, and other 
countries; a Prasophyllum, also found in New Zealand, where a Tasmanian species of Thelymitra and of 
Caladenia probably also occur, but these have not been satisfactorily identified. Considerably more than 
half the Australian Orchids, about 120 species, are confined to the east coast and Tasmania, about 60 
being confined to the western, and 15 or 20 are common to the south-eastern and south-western quarters 
of the continent. Tasmania contains 74 species, all but 8 of which have been found on the neighbouring 
continent, though of these some are peculiar to it and south-western Australia. 
The difficulties attending the analysis and discrimination of the plants of this Natural Order are pro- 
verbially great, and the Tasmanian Orchids have proved proportionally more troublesome than any other 
Natural Order, partly from Mr. Brown having found few of them in Tasmania, and partly from Gunn’s 
splendid series of specimens being accompanied by fewer remarks than usual. 
On the other hand I have derived the greatest assistance from Mr. Archer’s drawings, notes, and 
specimens, as well as from his intimate acquaintance with the living plants; his beautiful drawings and 
dissections are, with his kind permission, and at his expense, lithographed for this Work by Mr. Fitch; 
and I can only add, that but for his having afforded me the benefit of his accurate knowledge of the 
species, I should in several cases have failed to discriminate them aright, and in other cases, where I had 
properly discriminated, to have selected their most important diagnostic characters. 
I am also greatly obliged to Dr. Lindley for his ever ready advice and assistance, and for the use of 
his Herbarium, containing all of Gunn’s collections that were published in his valuable ‘Genera and 
Species of Orchidee.’ 
VOL. I. | B 
