m JAVA. So 



1 



109 were witliering with intact anthers, or had lost their pol- 

 len and were unfertilised, 245 had fallen off, six only had 

 produced capsules, . These are not selected instances, but the 

 result of the ^examination of five phxnts as they occur in my 

 note-book. I have several times found in various species of 

 Calantlie, specimens which at first I thouglit to be cleistO' 

 gamoushj fertilised, where the ovules were enlarged in the 

 ovary, and the flowers quite open; but close examination lias 

 shown that this is the effect of the irritation of a small species 

 oi Hijmeno]^tera — a eynips probably. 



Mr. Darwin, in his 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' enumerates 

 but four instances of self-fertilisation as coming under his 

 observation, namely : in Oplirys apifera, by the falling forwarl 

 of its own pollinia, which are then, by the agency of the Mind, 

 brought into contact with tlie stigma — the plant being capable 

 also of cross fertilisation ; in Peristylis viridis^ Avhich is pos- 

 sible to be self-fertilised by its own pollen from the head of 

 the visiting insect; in Cejyhalanthera grandijlora, which is 

 perpetually self-fertilised by its pollen grains that rest against 

 the upper sharp edge of the stigma thrusting down their 

 'pollen tubes into the ovary ; \asi\\, Bendrobvtm chrysanthiimy 

 which may possibly be self-fertilised by its own peculiar acro- 

 batic pollen. In the additional instances here given, some 

 will be found to be singular and different, I believe, from 



any hitherto recorded,* 



The genus Phajus is an excoedingly handsome and attrac- 

 tive coterie of orchids growing in open and sunny places, 

 throwing up from their large broad root leaves, stout erect 

 flower-stalks, one and a-half to two feet in height, crowded 

 with florets. The expanded sepals of Phajus Bhimei mea- 

 sure laterally from tip to tip twelve to fourteen centimetres. 

 Their external maririns are white and interiorly rich chest- 

 nut brown ; the lubellum is of a beautiful briglit purple 

 magenta colour, margined with yellowish wliito. Its fringed 

 moutli forms a broad landing-stage for passing insects, for 

 whose benefit brightly coloured ridges point the -way in vain 

 to the nectary, as7 unfortunately for the visitor, it rarely con- 



+ 



* From here to the top of r<^ge 96 may be patsed over hy the 'general 

 reader not interested in this subject made so fascinatiqg by the 8tudies cf 

 Mr. Darwin given in the volume nferred to above. 



