390 MR. H. N. RIDLEY ON SELF-FERTILIZATION 
and forests, and is more noticeable for its prettily marbled leaves 
than for its raceme of dull brownish flowers. The stiff lateral 
scape (which in one specimen I found was branched) bears 
somewhat distant, small, inconspicuous flowers. The sepals and 
petals are lurid purplish brown and connivent. The flower, as 
far as I have seen, does not open properly, but between the lower 
sepals which form the lip and the petals there is a space through 
which the pink-striped labellum ean be seen. The lip is three- 
lobed’; the lateral lobes erect, rounded, and blunt, the median 
one bifid at the apex ; all are ornamented with pink stripes, and 
at the entrance to the short blunt spur are two little truncate 
lamelle. I could not perceive any scent to the flowers nor honey 
in the-spur. But it is evident that this plant has modifications 
adapted for insect fertilization. The column is short and stout, but 
curved. In young flowers the short, thick pollinia are in their 
normal position in the anther-cap; but soon the anther-cap falls 
off, and the pollinia still remaining attached to the rostellum by 
the caudicle and viscid dise fall towards till they touch the stigma 
and impregnate it. This method of self-fertilization is very 
similar to that of Ophrys apifera, Linn. ; but the shortness of the 
caudicle and gland make the fertilization more certain. The plant . 
seems to fruit very largely, hardly a flower being wasted, and the 
seeds are extraordinarily abundant. It is widely distributed 
throughout Brazil, and is one of the very few orchids yet known 
common to that country and to Western Africa, where it was 
found by Dr. Welwitsch. 
TRIcHOPILia FRAGRANS, Lindl., var. 
A couple of sprays of this plant were sent me in December 
last by Mr. Burbidge, of Trinity College Gardens, Dublin, with 
the following note :—“ For the past ten years we have had in 
these gardens a plant very like Pilumna fragrans or P. nobilis 
in habit of growth, but it has puzzled myself and two or three 
successive foremen in that, do what we could, we could never get 
it to open its flowers. The plant grows vigorously and throws up 
from 15 to 20 spikes every season. We have adopted the usual 
practices, but under no circumstances could we induce the floral 
segments to expand as in the normal P. fragrans. Another 
point is that the present form is totally scentless, while both 
P. fragrans and P. nobilis are deliciously sweet. The discovery 
that it was not fragrant led me to examine the shrouded column, 
