44 NATURE STUDY. 



An Aristocratic Family. III. 



BY FREDERICK W. BATCHELDER. 



"Will you walk into my parlor ?'' 



Said the orchid to the fly, 

 "Tis the prettiest little parlor 



You ever did espy." 



So sing the flowers to the insects. So sings the lady- 

 slipper to the bee, and, as we have seen, often lures him to 

 destruction. But the lady-slipper does not mean to kill the 

 bee. She only wants to use him to carry her parcels for 

 her. If he is too stupid to find his way out, that is his af- 

 fair, not hers. The lady-slippers {Cypripcdhim) have, in 

 the course of time, evolved an insect trap, a place of tem- 

 porary detention, from which there is but one way of exit, 

 and that by the prescribed path. This is so laid out 

 that the anthers cannot be touched until after the stigma 

 is passed by. In this way cross-fertilization is ensured and 

 self-fertilization prevented at one and the same time. 



This genus, Cj^pripedium, differs more from all the other 

 genera of orchids than the most unlike of those differ from 

 each other. It is, in fact, almost the sole living remnant 

 of an ancient type, its cogeners having perished in the 

 struggle for existence. The other genera of orchids have 

 undergone even greater changes in structure. The sepals 

 and petals remain essentially the same. In Cypripedium 

 one of the three outer stamens remains in a rudimentary 

 condition and constitutes the screen-like body which pre- 

 vents exit by the rear centre ; in the other genera the cor- 

 responding stamen is the only fertile one. In Cypripedium 

 two of the inner stamens are fertile : in the other genera 

 none of them remain as stamens. In Cypripedium the 

 three stigmas are faintly indicated lobes of the stigma : in 

 most of the other genera one of the stigmas has been mod- 



