18631866] ORCHIDS 337 



I daresay an abstract which I have seen will appear in the Letter 661 

 Gardeners Chronicle ; but blunders have crept in in copying, 

 and parts are barely intelligible. How insects act with your 

 Stanhopea I will not pretend to conjecture. In many cases 

 I believe the acutest man could not conjecture without seeing 

 the insect at work. I could name common English plants 

 in this predicament. But the musk-orchis \Herminium 

 monorchis\ is a case in point. Since publishing, my son and 

 myself have watched the plant and seen the pollinia removed, 

 and where do you think they invariably adhere in dozens of 

 specimens ? always to the joint of the femur with the tro- 

 chanter of the first pair of legs, and nowhere else. When one 

 sees such adaptation as this, it would be hopeless to conjecture 

 on the Stanhopea till we know what insect visits it. I have 

 fully proved that my strong suspicion was correct that with 

 many of our English orchids no nectar is excreted, but that 

 insects penetrate the tissues for it. So I expect it must be 

 with many foreign species. I forgot to say that if you find 

 that you cannot fertilise any of your exotics, take pollen from 

 some allied form, and it is quite probable that will succeed. 

 Will you have the kindness to look occasionally at your bee- 

 Ophrys near Torquay, and see whether pollinia are ever 

 removed? It is my greatest puzzle. Please read what I have 

 said on it, and on 0. arachnites. I have since proved that the 

 account of the latter is correct. I wish I could have given 

 you better information. 



P.S. If the flowers of the Stanhopea are not too old, 

 remove pollen-masses from their pedicels, and stick them 

 with a little liquid pure gum to the stigmatic cavity. After 

 the case of the Acropera, no one can dare positively say that 

 they would not act. 



To J. D. Hooker. Letter 662 



Down, Saturday, 5th [Dec. 1863]. 



I am very glad that this will reach you at Kew. You will 

 then get rest, and I do hope some lull in anxiety and fear. 

 Nothing is so dreadful in this life as fear ; it still sickens me 

 when I cannot help remembering some of the many illnesses 

 our children have endured. My father, who was a sceptical 

 man, was convinced that he had distinctly traced several cases 

 of scarlet fever to handling letters from convalescents. 

 VOL. II. 22 



