Abstract
WHEN the first handbook of the New South Wales flora was published in 1893 it contained descriptions of one hundred and seventy-three orchids, whereas in the work under review the Rev. H. M. R. Rupp provides descriptions of no less than two hundred and forty-eight. The large majority of these orchids are terrestrial species, only fifty-two being epiphytes, and they include a number of interesting genera, among which may be cited Prasmophyllum and Cryptostylis. Of the former, rather more than half the eighty known species are dealt with here, while of the latter twenty species are known and three occur in New South Wales. In all the members of these two genera the inferior ovary, instead of exhibiting the half-twist through 180°, as in most orchids, undergoes a complete twist during development so that the flower has a normal orientation but is reversed compared with most orchid flowers. One naturally thinks of the analogy with the leaves of Alstroemeria, where most species exhibit a twist of the base that brings about complete reversal, while in a few an edge-on position of the leaf is assumed as the leaf-base only undergoes a half-turn. The changes, both anatomical and morphological, which accompany such complete reversal, may be profound, and the fact that these ensue, rather than, what would appear simpler, namely, complete suppression of twisting, suggests a sort of momentum in evolution, since further genetical changes in the same direction appear to be more readily achieved than such as would be accompanied by a reversion to the ancestral condition.
The Orchids of New South Wales
By the Rev. H. M. R. Rupp. Pp. xv + 152. (Sydney: National Herbarium, Botanic Gardens, 1943.) 9s. net.
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SALISBURY, E. The Orchids of New South Wales. Nature 154, 131 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154131a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154131a0