ORCHIS SPECTABILIS. 



SHOWY ORCHIS, OR PREACHER IN THE PULPIT. 



NATURAL ORDER, ORCHIDACEtE. 



Orchis spectatiilis, Linnasus. — Root of thick, fleshy fibres, producing two oblong-obovate 

 shining leaves, three to five inches long, and a few-flowered, four-angled scape, four to 

 seven inches high; bracts leaf-like, lanceolate; sepals and petals all lightly united to 

 form the vaulted galea or upper lip, pink purple; the ovate undivided lip, white. (Gray's 

 Manual of Botany. See also Chapman's /^^ra (//'/^^.S'oi«//^6V';i.S'Az/6'j-, and Wood's Class-Book.) 



I HE Orchid family is well known as the most peculiar in 

 the vegetable world. In the temperate regions of Eu- 

 rope, Asia, and America, the plants belonging to it grow in the 

 earth; but in the tropics they generally attach themselves to 

 trees and other objects, deriving most of their nutrition from the 

 atmosphere. The flowers, in many cases, resemble living crea- 

 tures, frequently vying with them in the beauty of their colors and 

 markings; and singularly dependent, in many cases, on insect 

 agency for the fertilization of their flowers. The purpose of the 

 necessity for fertilization by external agency does not seem clear, 

 though many leading botanists believe it is expressly to avoid 

 self-fertilization, which they regard as injurious,but an Australian 

 species closes its flower with a spring and catches the visiting 

 Insect, according to Drummond, thus effectually destroying its 

 chances of cross-fertilization, if that were the object In view. 



It is indeed difficult to decide on the purpose of Nature in the 

 structure or behavior of plants, or their several parts, because 

 Nature's purposes are never wholly with a present view. We 

 know by geological and other evidences that the plants of the 

 present age are not as plants were in past periods of the world's 

 history. There is an evident purpose that In the future, plant- 



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