86 
Australian Myrmecophilous Plants —In Banks’s Ces (p. 304) of 
Captain Cook’s first voyage, lately edited by Sir Joseph Hooker, he 
describes an epiphytic plant having a large tuberous tesa permeated by 
innumerable winding passages invariably inhabited by ants. The species: 
observed by Banks was inhabited by red ants, eveu in a young state, 
a large turnip.” Banks identified it with the Gad Formicarum ruber 
of Rumphius vereri rium vete vi. p. 120. 5. f. 2), subsequently 
named Myrmecodia Rumphii by Bee B CMalesid, ii. p. 117), which, 
however, is only kno iuvit certainty i ‘inhabit Amboyna. No species of 
this singular group of renee is included in Bentham’s Flora ‘Misbrliekieis 
(1866) ; but in 1867, Dr. Ch. Moore, Director of the Sydney Botanic 
Gardens, sent some living plants, which had been brought from Cape 
York by Captain Nares, to Kew. In 4 communication relating to these 
plants (Journal of js vi. SERES p. 92), Mr. G. Bennett quotes a 
letter from Dr. [now Sir Joseph] Hooker, in which they are mentioned 
as Myrmecodia armata and gg aiu Jor micarum. These names 
were taken up by F. Mueller (Fragmenta. Phytographie Australis 
i, p. 45), and the latter is repeated in the icm edition of his Census of 
VITA Plants, p. 75; whilst the former is given as M. echinata, 
which, in Pie second edition of the Census, is again altered to M. Antoini?. 
cessful in cultivating the plants in question, and un- 
dare thé. dead plants were not preserved, either as museum or her- 
bar pecimens, so that we cannot be certain what they were, though 
thé e evidence is against the original determinations. This is not sur- 
prising because at that im: d about half a dozen of the fifty species 
now known had been des 
The first successful impor of ps plants of Myrmecodia seems 
to have been made d Messrs, J. Veitch, who esa a plant of 
M. Beccarii, Hook. f. (Botanical Magazine, t. 5883) to Kew in 1886. 
In the sane year Mr. H. O. Forbes sent Hy ydnophytum | Forbesit, 
Hook. f. (Botanical Mosinee, t. 7218) from New Guinea to Kew, 
where it has been essfully cultivated. In 1891 a plant of 
H yanophy r dongi dicen, À . Gr., a native of Fiji, wassent to Kew by 
wii of the Botanical Station there. This flowered in 
Australian species is represented in the Museum by a specimen from 
Somerset, North Australia, collected by the Macleay Expedition. 1t is 
apparently Hi opi ytum crassifolium, Becc., a species found in the 
Aru Is n German New Guinea, two very distant localities. 
prre A "Sir Joseph Hooker (Botanical Magazine, 1894, sub. t 
apes Dr. A. R. Wallace was the first to attempt the introduction of 
e plants, having sent a Myrmecodia to Kew about the year 1860 
There are also plants in the Museum of the three Australian species ‘tiated 
above, sent by the late Walter Hill, haga of the Brisbane Botanic 
Garden, which arrived in a dead conditi 
[W- B. H.] 
