150 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AND PRODUCTIONS. 



I pass on now to the peculiar structure which distinjjuishes Orchids from all 

 other plants. " The order owes its chief peculiarities to the following circumstances : 

 1st, to the consolidation of all the sexual organs {i c. stamens, pistils, etc.) into 

 one common mass, called the column ; 2ndlY, to the suppression of all the anthers, 

 except one in the mass of the order, and tiro in Cypripedea) ; 3rdly, to the peculiar 

 condition of its pollen and the anther whirh contains it ; and 4thly, to the very 

 general development of one of the inner leaves of the perianth in an excessive 

 degree, or in an unusual form." — Lindloj. Such, shortly and technically stated, 

 is the peculiarity of an Orchid flower ; in order, however, to make all the parts of 

 the flower clear to an inexperienced person, perhaps the simplest way will be to 

 suppose that we have. such a flower in our hand, and proceed to examine it in detail. 

 Fortunately one of the largest and most suitable for our puiiiose is also one of the 

 commonest and most easily procurable in Burma : this is the lovely Dendroliioii 

 formosum. We will take, then, a specimen of this well-known flower in our hand, 

 and examine it part by part. First, we notice that it is seated at right angles on 

 a short round white curved pedicel, or stalk, which is thickened slightly upwards, 

 i.e. near the flower. This upper or thickened portion is really the germ, or yet 

 unfertilized seed-vessel, which, if duly impregnated, will ultimately be developed 

 into a large oval or pear-shaped pod. Some Orchid flowers have little or no other 

 foot-stalk than this germ. If we next look at and count the segments of the flower, 

 ■we shall find that they are six, including the lip as one. Si.v, be it remembered, 

 is the normal number of such parts in all Orchids : there are occasional apparent 

 exceptions, but this is the rule. These six segments go by the general name of 

 perianth, which means the flower-envelope ("the flower" of a plant, technically, 

 being its sexual parts, and not the generally coloured parts commonly so called and 

 forming its chief attraction). Of this perianth (a word I have avoided the use of 

 in my specific descriptions) the three outer segments will be seen to be oblong, 

 pointed, and tolerably uniform in shape : these are the sepals. Alternating with 

 these are the three much larger and broader inner segments, which are the petals. 

 This name, however, in Orchids is mostly confined to the two upper, while the 

 lower one is called "the lip" — and is that part of the perianth, which being 

 "generally developed in an excessive degree, or in an unusual form," con.stitutes 

 one of the main characters of the order. We next observe, in the centre or axis 

 of the flower, a shoi't thick fleshy body — this is " the column " ; — and at its 

 extremity, seated in a sort of cleft, a little cap or lid, which is the anther; and 

 if we gently lift this lid (it is fastened by a hinge to the back of the column) there 

 will probably tall out (for they are perfectly free) four small, yellow, hard, waxy 

 bodies, either altogether or in two pairs ; these are the pollen-masses, on the number 

 and position and attachment of which the " diagnosis" of Orchids is made so largely 

 to depend. Farther, if wo look just below the anther in front, a small cavity with 

 a viscid surface will be seen : this is the stigmatic surface, and the fertilization and 

 development of the germ into a fully ripened capsule or pod depends entirely on 



the branches united into a solid mass, till all that could be seen of the miserable victim was an arm here 

 and there, as it were imploringly stretched out and strufrgling towards the light, vainly trying to escape 

 from the treacherous embrace of its tormentor. At last my poor friend the Vilix totally disappeared, 

 enveloped in a winding sheet of inextricable folds, and strangled to death in the embrace of its 

 inexorable foe — a vegetable "Laocoon." 



" Round sire and sons the scaly monsters rolled. 

 King above ring, in manv a tangled told, 

 Close and more close tlieir writhing limbs surround, 

 And fix with foamy teeth the envenomed wound." 



Danriii, Loves of the Plants, Canto iii. 331. 



Few who now pass by and see the placid Fictis (for I doubt not it stands there yet) would suppose 

 that such a foul deed had been done by it, and that it still holds the murdered body of its victim hidden 

 within that smiling exterior ! Many a giant Finis in the forests betrays its former life by its perfectly 

 hollow trunk, from which the very bones of a too confiding friend, similarly ti'eated, have, by the 

 process of inevitable decay, fallen out. 



