DENDROBIUM. D 



when old. Tliey are either pendulous, nodding, or erect ; in some 

 species but a few inches in height, in others attaining a length of 

 several feet ; they are always jointed, the joints being often more or 

 less swollen and the internodes clothed with the persistent sheathing 

 bases of the fallen leaves, which are greyish white and striated longi- 

 tudinally. 



The leaves are usually of ovate-oblong shape, or of some modification 

 of that form ; they are distichously and alternately arranged along the 

 stems, in which case they are either deciduous or of biennial duration ; 

 or they are confined to the tops of the stems, when they are usually 

 persistent several years. 



The inflorescence is lateral or pseudo-terminal. In the deciduous 

 species, the flowers are produced singly, or more commonly in fascicles 

 of twos and threes from the joints on the side opposite the leaf or 

 where the leaf had been. In the evergreen species the inflorescence 

 is more decidedly racemose, and the racemes are produced from the 

 stems below the leaves three or more years in succession. 



It is scarcely necessary to add that the simple facts stated above 

 respecting the vegetation of the Dendrobes should be noted by the 

 cultivator, as they have an important bearing on the successful 

 treatment of the plants, as will be presently pointed out. 



The genus Dendrobium was founded by Oloff Swartz, a Swedish 

 botanist, one of the immediate successors of Linnaeus, in Sweden, and 

 in whose University, Upsal, he graduated. In the Transactions of the 

 Royal Academy of Science, of Stockholm, for 1800, Swartz published 

 a synopsis of the orchids known to him, establishing several new 

 genera, including Dendrobium, under which he describes nine species ; 

 upwards of 300 species are now included in the genus. The name 

 is derived from SevSpov (dendron), " a tree," and j3toT (bios), " life," 

 hence it is almost synonymous with Epidendrum. 



The Dendrobes are spread over an immense area in south-east Asia, 

 the Malayan Archipelago, Australia and the Islands of the Western 

 Pacific, a region that cannot be very clearly defined, but which may 

 be roughly stated to lie between the 28th parallel of north and the 

 40th of south latitude, and between the 80th and 160th meridians of 

 east longitude. Beyond these limits there are outlying members in 

 Southern India, Japan, the Society Islands, New Zealand, and in 

 some other places. Within this portion of the globe, all the general 

 phenomena of the climate of the tropics occur, but vast as is the 

 region above sketched, it is a curious fact that nearly all the Den- 



