18631866] ORCHIDS 339 



let me have your decision pretty soon. Some germanisms Letter 663 

 must be corrected ; whether woodcuts are necessary I have not 

 been able to pay attention enough to decide. If you refuse, 

 please send it to the Linnean Society 1 as communicated by 

 me. The paper has interested me extremely, and I shall 

 have no peace till I have a good boast. The sexes are 

 separate in Catasetuin, which is a wonderful relief to me 5 

 as I have had two or three letters saying that the male 

 C. tridentatum* seeds. It is pretty clear to me that two or 

 three forms are confounded under this name. Observe how 

 curiously nearly perfect the pollen of the female is, according 

 to Crtiger, certainly more perfect than the pollen from the 

 Guyana species described by me. I was right in the manner 

 in which the pollen adheres to the hairy back of the humble- 

 bee, 3 and hence the force of the ejection of the pollina. I am 

 still more pleased that I was right about insects gnawing the 

 fleshy labellum. This is important, as it explains all the 

 astounding projections on the labellum of Oncidium y 

 Pkalcenopsis, etc. 



Excuse all my boasting. It is the best medicine for my 

 stomach. Tell me whether you mean to take up orchids, as 

 Hooker said you were thinking of doing. Do you know 

 Coryanthes, with its wonderful basket of water ? See what 

 Criiger says about it. It beats everything in orchids. 4 



To I. D. Hooker. ,, 



J Letter 664 



Down [Sept. I3th, 1864]. 



Thanks for your note of the 5th. You think much and 

 greatly too much of me and my doings ; but this is pleasant, 

 for you have represented for many years the whole great 

 public to me. 



I have read with interest Bentham's address on hybridism. 



1 H. Criiger's "A Few Notes on the Fecundation of Orchids, etc." 

 [Read March, 1864.] Linn. Soc.Journ., VIII., 1864-5, P- I2 7- 



2 See footnote p. 280 on the sexual relation between the three forms 

 known as Catasetum tridentatum, Monacanthus viridis, and Myanthus 

 barbatus. For further details see Darwin, Linn. Soc. Journ., VI., 1862, 

 p. 151, and Fertilisation of Orchids, Ed. II., p. 196. 



3 This view was given in Fertilisation of Orchids, Ed. I., 1862, p. 230. 



4 For Coryanthes see Fertilisation of Orchids, Ed. II., p. 173- 



