GEOGEAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION—FKUCTIFIC ATIOX. 32/ 



has for many years cultivated these plants to a degree of perfection 

 seldom equalled and certainly never yet surpassed. 



Every year is adding to the number of new species imported, and also 

 to the number of admirers of this grotesque group of plants, so that it 

 has now become as fashionable to possess a collection of Orchidese as it 

 was about the beginning of this century to possess one of heaths. 



The geographical distribution of Orchideous plants is not so very 

 equally divided as that of some other natural orders. For in Europe and 

 other temperate regions of the globe they are less abundantly found, and 

 towards the arctic regions disappeai', while in and towards the tropics they 

 abound in surprising numbers. In the temperate regions they are, for 

 the most part, teiTCstrial, growing in meadows and pastures, while within 

 the tropics they are chiefly parasitical, or rather epiphytal, growing upon 

 the trunks and branches of hving trees and shrubs, and also upon the 

 trunks of those that have fallen. Some can hardly be said to have any 

 fixed place of abode, and are found forming large tufts firmly knit together 

 by their numerous and tortuous roots, and suffering Httle from being 

 thrown about as the passing kick of the traveller may send them. 



A great number of tropical Orchideous plants are found adhering to 

 the branches of trees in the most dense forests in an epiphytal manner, 

 not fixed parasitically by their roots to the bark of the trees that support 

 them. In such situations they are consequently shaded from direct light 

 by the leaves and branches which surround them : they are also placed 

 in a moist atmosphere and high temperature, ventilation and evaporation 

 being almost precluded. 



To the fructification of Orchideous plants it may be necessary to make 

 some allusion, inasmuch as it is stiU but imperfectly known ; and 

 although Mr. R. Brown and a few others seem to have the production of 

 plants of this order fi'om seeds at their command, still the generahty of 

 cultivators have failed in producing similar results, and not a few, other- 

 wise intelligent and accurate in their botanical researches, deem the 

 theory altogether visionary. 



" The singular plants which constitute this class are distinguished from 

 all others by the anomalous structure of their flowers. These do not, as 

 is usually the case, contain a certain number of stamens, surrounding a 

 central ovarium or style, but, on the contrary, are furnished with a soli- 

 tary fleshy undivided process, round which the sepals radiate, and which 

 supphes the place of stamens and style. The nature of this process has 

 been variously explained : the modern opinion is, that it is formed by the 

 accretion of the stamens and style into a single mass, and this opinion 



