ORCHIDACEOUS PLANTS. : 315 
the sap of the individual to which they are attached, but using 
the tree apparently as a means of attaining a height where they 
can obtain the air and light, or the heat, moisture, and shade, as 
the case may be, necessary to their existence. 
Orcuipacrous Errpuyres are much the most numerous and 
interesting, and now that our great cultivators have been enabled 
to study their natural habits, they are grown in a state of per- 
fection which it is doubtful if they ever attain in a state of nature. 
In the tropical forests they establish themselves upon the branches, 
and either vegetate in the midst of decayed vegetable and animal 
matter, or cling to the naked branches by their long, succulent, 
grasping roots, while they draw their food from the humid sultry 
atmosphere ; for it appears they attach themselves alike to rocks 
and stones in moist places, where they grow luxuriantly. 
On the confines of the Orchidaceous plants we find the family 
Aposrastace®, herbaceous perennials of the Indian woods, in many 
respects resembling the Orchids ; differing from them chiefly in 
having a three-celled fruit, and a style altogether separated from 
the stamens for the greater part of its length; the Pumypracex 
_ 4re grassy-looking herbaceous plants of Australia and Asia, ex- 
hibiting the great spathetic bracts of the Musacew, with the habit 
of Sedges. : 
The Xyrmacem are herbaceous fibrous-rooted plants, with sword- 
shaped radical leaves dilating and equitant at the base, the flowers 
having imbricated scaly heads, calyx glumaceous, three-leaved, 
corolla petaloid and coloured, petals three and stamens six. These 
_ Plants join to the habit of Sedges and other glumaceous plants, 
__ Some approach to the peculiarities of Liliaceous plants. The 
_ Yuncacee, or Rushes, partake of the characteristics of the Xyrids, 
®pproaching the grasses in the glumaceous character of ‘the calyx 
and corolla, and Xyrids in that of their calyx and bracts. They 
are herbaceous plants, with tufted or creeping roots and tapering 
- : Stem, often with a distinct pith. 
The Orontiacem are herbaceous plants with broad, entire, or 
_ deeply-divided, sometimes sword-shaped, leaves. They occupy 
___ Woodland stations chiefly within the tropics of both hemispheres, but 
: _ Ste found also in colder regions, one of them, Symplocarus, being 
