HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



53 



a crowd, and a far grander vision of creation unfolds 

 before his view. At once, to quote Horace Smith's 

 hymn, living preachers speak with voiceless lips, 

 every cup becomes a pulpit, every leaf a book, and 

 this new gospel is sounded in our listening ears — 

 that no created organism can be selfish or self- 

 sufficing, but that every unit is connected with its 

 neighbour in some mysterious marvellous manner ; 

 and that unless a double deed of good is done, when 

 any good is done, a deed of beauty as well as a deed 

 of duty, the doer does not fulfil his appointed end in 

 Nature. 



I have selected the common orchis as a good 

 example of this, and I hope to succeed in showing 

 how curiously and unexpectedly it illustrates this 

 creed, and proves itself to be not only useful to one 

 class of insects, but also highly attractive to another. 

 For whether the plant is a favourite with poets or 

 not, it is in itself a most absorbing study, and will 

 always be remembered for having occupied such keen 

 intellects as Sprengel, Brown, Miiller and others, and 

 for having furnished that higher estimate of creative 

 power which we owe to our illustrious countryman, 

 the late Charles Darwin. 



An enumeration of the various peculiarities of the 

 common orchis will now be undertaken, ascending 

 from the root upward ; and I must warn the reader 

 that no little credence is required to rightly apprehend 

 the series of surprises in store, for nothing about the 

 common orchis is common. It is not common in 

 the sense that bluebells, primroses, and buttercups 

 are common : it hasn't got a common root : it hasn't 

 got a common flower : it isn't fertilised in the 

 common ordinary way : and the extreme care be- 

 stowed on each part of it is anything but common. 



The root of the common orchis is a didymous or 

 twin root (radix didyma), and consists, as Sir Joseph 

 Hooker says (" Science Primer," p. 40), of two 

 distinct fleshy tubercles, one large and the other small. 

 These grow together at the base of the stem, and 

 from the column, or place of attachment, numerous 

 slender fibres spread out horizontally. When an 

 orchis is in flower (April and May), the stem and 

 leaves proceed from the crown of the larger tubercle, 

 while the smaller one is attached at the neck. Later 

 on in the year, when the orchis is seed-bearing (end 

 of July), the larger tubercle has become brown and 

 husky and withered, the fibres have disappeared, and 

 then the whole plant dies. Meantime the smaller 

 tubercle has grown plump and vigorous, and detaches 

 itself into a separate plant with a plumule or growing- 

 point of its own, which eventually becomes the orchis 

 of the following year. The orchis is thus propagated 

 by its tuber. 



The appearance of the plumule announces that the 

 orchis belongs to the great order of Monocotyledons, 

 which, of course, are distinguished for possessing (a) 

 one seed-leaf only, (£) straight-veined leaves, (7) 

 endogenous wood in long fibres, and (S) floral whorls 



in 3's and 6's. The snowdrop, crocus, daffodil, 

 hyacinth, and tulip also belong to the same order, 

 and flower early in the year, when the soil is hard 

 and stubborn, so that the mechanical advantage of a 

 single dagger-shaped growing-point is obvious. In 

 general, bulbs which bear flowers die after fulfilling 

 that debt, but sometimes, as just described, the plant 

 is continued by the formation of a new bulb, which 

 does not altogether perform the part of a true root. 

 The tuber of the orchis is a case in point, for it 

 contains a store of food, not for the leaves and stem, 

 but for the new tuber. It is, therefore, composed of 

 starch, loosely consolidated in minute granules like 

 tapioca, and not in flakes like the bluebell. For the 

 production of this starch, besides the usual amount of 

 oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon obtained from the 

 atmosphere, much potash is required, which, with 

 nitrogen and sulphur, forms albuminoid, the chief 

 food of the life-giving principle in plants. The 

 commonest albuminoid is gluten (" Science Primer," 

 p. 26). The whole nature of the orchis is viscid, and 

 its tuber, when soaked in water, emits a transparent 

 gum. The tuber itself survives for eighteen months, 

 a period which may roughly be divided into three 

 stages : (1) from the first appearance to the separate 

 existence ; (2) from the appearance of the rootlets to 

 the development of the new tuber and the perfecting 

 of the leaves ; (3) from the appearance of the leaves 

 to seed-bearing and decay. It would be an interest- 

 ing discovery to ascertain the age of a tuber and the 

 amount of increase annually : does a tuber, two inches 

 in length, say, represent the reserve of twelve or more 

 years? For it is evident that the common orchis 

 grows extremely slowly. From the tuber is made 

 Salep (Sahhleb, in Arabic), a nutritious preparation 

 which forms a considerable part of the diet of the 

 inhabitants of Turkey, Syria, and Palestine, and 

 comes to us in hard oval cakes of a yellowish colour, 

 not quite transparent. It tastes like arrowroot and 

 is very wholesome, and contains a greater quantity of 

 nutriment in the same bulk than any other vegetable 

 substance known, one ounce mixed with soup being 

 sufficient food for a strong man for a day. If this 

 old-fashioned statement is true (" Library of Enter- 

 taining Knowledge," vol. ii. p. 158), then the care 

 taken by nature in preserving so valuable a product 

 is at once explained ; but Dr. Lindley instances the 

 orchis as being a case of beauty apart from utility, 

 and he denies that Salep is prepared from its tubers. 

 It is worthy of remark that the orchideae do not 

 flourish in rich or highly-manured lands, the soil of 

 grass-meadows suiting them better. Gloucestershire 

 supplies many tubers, but those from the Levant are 

 finer. 



I would now call attention to the shapeof the tuber, 

 which seems specially designed to assist the peculiar 

 growth of the plant. Like a royal progress through 

 a disaffected region, the common orchis seems to 

 have strayed into a dangerous quarter, where all 



