440 ORCHID ACE^. [part ii. 



down to show its appearance, while the other 

 remains in its case at (e). The stigma is a 

 sort of cup half full of a glutinous fluid, but it 

 appears . entirely shut out from the pollen, 

 which is not only enclosed in its pouch or bag, 

 but is of such a solid waxy nature as to prevent 

 any possibility of its being carried by wind or 

 insects to the stigma. Nature, however, has 

 contrived a means of obviating the difficulty. 

 At the foot of each stalk of the pollen masses, 

 there is a little protuberance, covering a gland, 

 through which the pollen descends to the stig- 

 ma, and thence to the ovary or germen. 



The different genera are distinguished, partly 

 by the manner in which the granules of the 

 pollen adhere together, and partly by the shape 

 of the flowers ; and their different species vary 

 principally in the form of the labellum. In the 

 genera Orchis and Habenaria, the labellum is 

 drawn out behind into a kind of spur (see e in 

 jig. 146) ; and in others it assumes strange 

 shapes, as in the Man Orchis (Aceras anfhropo- 

 phora)^ where the labellum looks like a little 

 man ; and in the Lizard Orchis {A, or Orchis 

 liircina) where the labellum is drawn out into a 

 long tail, which looks like the tail and long 

 body of the lizard, while the petals, which are 

 long and narrow and bent back, look like the 

 hind legs. In the genus Ophrys, the labellum 



