A genus of 10 species, 5 in New Caledonia, 2 in New Zealand and 1 each in Tahiti, Samoa and Fiji. It appears to have originated in New Caledonia and been windborne eastwards.

The writer cannot accept Cheeseman's E. aestivalis. The type locality, Muriwai, contains both robust and slender forms which flower in the spring or summer or both, or not at all. Material examined from localities as far apart as the Waitakeres, New Plymouth, Westland, and Stewart Island could not be distinguished from E. mucronata, although flowering at times ranging from December to May (all these plants were from coastal associations). During 1945–47 he had opportunity to observe 2 plants of E. mucronata which had been brought in from Hunua on their original Cyathea trunks and established in the fernery at the Auckland Winter Gardens. The first plant flowered in September, 1946, and again in February, 1947. This was not merely a drawn-out flowering period, but two distinct bursts of activity with a completely flowerless period of several months in between. The second plant flowered in September, 1945, and not again until February, 1947, a flowerless period of 17 months. It then flowered again in October, 1947. It is considered that E. aestivalis is nothing more than an epharmone of E. mucronata, brought about by the more rigorous conditions of the coastal environment. The floral morphology in both is identical and the slightly darker labellum in the summerflowering form is certainly not of itself sufficient to warrant retaining the species.