ON THE GENERA OF ORCHIDEiE, 



AND THEIR SYSTEMATICAL ARRANGEMENT. 



Bv PROF. O. SWARZ. 



[Translated from the Swedifh.]* 



1 HE Orchideas have been confidered, ever fince 

 Morison's time, as belonging to a proper na- 

 tural family, easily distinguished by the following 

 characters ; leaves undivided, and generally reticu- 

 lately veined; flowers mostly polyphyllous, situated 

 above the germ, and having one of the petal-like 

 leaflets differently shaped from the others ; fruit 

 unilocular, opening, when ripe, by three valves, 

 and scattering its seeds as fine as dust ; a peculiar 

 smell, proceeding either from the root or from the 

 inner parts of the flower. But in defining and 

 distinguishing the various genera from one another, 



* Kongl. Vetcnskaps Academicns nya Handlingar. i8co. p. iij. seq. 



