o54 GYNANDKIA. 



generic mark of distinction, and it commonly is so ; 

 but some Indian species brought by Dr. Buchanan 

 prove it not to be absolute. The remarkable and 

 often highly ornamented lip, considered by Svvartz as 

 the only corolla, for he takes all the other leaves of the 

 flower for a calyx, has, by Linnaeus and others, been 

 thought, either a part of the nectary, or, where no 

 spur is present, the only nectary. Nor is this opin- 

 ion so ill-founded as many botanists suppose ; for the 

 front of the lip evidently secretes honey in Ophrys (or 

 Epipactis) ovata^ t. 1548, and probably in others not 

 yet attended to. Nevertheless, this lip might, like 

 the petals of lilies, be deemed a nectariferous corolla, 

 were it certain that all the other leaves were truly a 

 calyx. But the 2 inner are so remarkably different 

 from the 3 outer ones in Ophrys, t. 64, 65, 71, 383, 

 and above all, in Stelis, Exot. Bot. t. 75, that I am 

 most inclined to take the former for the corolla, the 

 latter being, according to all appearance, a calyx. 

 An insensible c-radation from one to the other, of 

 which we have pointed out other instances in treating 

 of this subject already, occurs in Diur'is^ ?. 8, 9 ; 

 while in some Orchidecs the leaves all partake more 

 of the habit of a calyx, and in others of a corolla. 

 Even the lip in Thelymitra^ t. 29. assumes the exact 

 form, colour, and texture, of the rest of the flower ; 

 which proves that a dissimilarity between any of these 

 parts is not always to be expected in the family under 

 consideration. Vahl appears by the preface to his 

 Enumeratio Plantarttm to have removed the Scitami- 

 nece to Gynandria^ because the stamen of Canna ad- 



