THE WILD ORCHID 



lively fly or bee scarcely lends itself to the camera 

 for showing the details I am describing. In Fig. 

 S^ appears an enlarged view of some of the flowers 

 (their natural size is shown in Fig. 80, Plate 56) to- 

 gether with a delicate bristle supposed to represent 

 the tongue or proboscis of the bee. In Fig. S6 

 (Plate 60) the bristle has been pushed into the tube 

 of the nectary and then withdrawn. Observe the 

 two minute clubs now attached to the bristle. 

 Owing to the delay of arranging for photographing, 

 the clubs have had sufficient time to fall from their 

 vertical position and are now pointing towards the 

 end of the bristle, just as they would on the 

 proboscis of the insect. 



I have previously remarked that the stigmas 

 which receive the pollen were below the sticky 

 disk of the stamen, so that if this bristle were 

 directed into the same flower again, the ends of 

 the clubs would now come into direct contact with 

 the stigmatic surfaces, and the flower would then 

 be self-fertilised, for each of the clubs is a mass 

 of pollen grains held together in little groups by 

 means of elastic or viscid threads. The insect, 

 however, does not visit the same flower twice in 

 succession, but flies to another, and as it travels 

 the little pollen clubs adjust themselves from 

 vertical to horizontal positions, so that the next 

 flower visited will receive the pollen. Such is the 

 ingenious device by means of which the spotted 

 orchis effects the cross-fertilisation of its flowers. 

 Provided that an insect visits the flower, it is 

 scarcely possible for things to go wrong ; the 



139 



