Australian Orchids

Abstract

THE part of this beautiful and instructive work which has just reached us contains ten plates, illustrations of sixteen species belonging to the genera Prasophyllum, Thelymitra, Sarcochilus, Dendrobium, Pterostylis, Cleisostoma, and Bolbophyllum, all full of analyses, displaying in a very satisfactory manner the forms, disposition, and, in many instances, the development of the reproductive organs; whilst the letterpress is as full as is that of previous parts, of curious and instructive observations on the habits of the species and their modes of fertilisation. Whether, in point of scientific importance, or fulness of illustration, there are few works upon the Orchideæ to compare with this, certainly none at all comparable to it has ever been attempted in a colony. Its only rivals are the magnificent orchideous plates in Blume's “Rumphia,” and in his still more beautiful “Orchideæ of the Indian Archipelago.” On the other hand, in respect of descriptive matter the works of these two authors widely differ. Blume had to deal with a host of previously unanalysed and unnamed generic and specific forms, which he classified and described in a truly masterly manner, and his works are hence almost purely systematic. The materials for the “Australian Orchids” had been for the most part classified by Brown in the “Prodromus Flora Novæ Hollandiæ,” with a skill equal to that subsequently displayed by Blume in respect of the Indian ones, and Mr. Fitzgerald has therefore rightly devoted his descriptive matter chiefly to the “life-history” of the species. As a specimen of this we may quote his observations on Prasophyllum funbriatum:—

Australian Orchids.

By R. O. Fitzgerald Part.V. (Sydney, N.S.W.)