INTRODUCTION. g 



the lip ; sometimes spread apart, giving the blossom the look of 

 a winged insect. Who knows but nature intended to make the 

 resemblance closer and then changed her mind ? The blossom 

 or blossoms may be borne on a scape, a stalk without normal 

 leaves, like that of our Pink Lady's-Slipper, or on a leafy stem 

 like that of the Yellow Lady's-Slipper ; this scape, or stem, 

 being sometimes covered with minute down ; often ribbed or 

 angled. The leaves are parallel veined, like those of the 

 Lilies (indeed, as the Lily family follows the Orchis family 

 pretty closely in botanical order and there are obvious points 

 of resemblance, it is not strange that some Orchids are mis- 

 taken for Lilies), and coming to the roots, we have three or 

 four kinds ; clusters of fibres, clusters of tubers, branching, 

 coral-like substances, and bulbs. Nearly all Orchids, wher- 

 ever they may grow (in England, all but one species), de- 

 pend so closely upon insects for their fertilization that the 

 failure of a plant to attract the insects that would naturally 

 visit it, or to produce the nectar for which they come, would 

 work a two-fold mischief : the extinction of the one must be 

 followed by the extinction of the other. To sum up, in the 

 words of Hermann Miiller: "The Orchis family is remarkable 

 for the following characters, due to its wide distribution and 

 to its enormous number of species : first, for great variety of 

 habit and diversity of station ; secondly, for its immense variety 

 of peculiar and highly-specialized flowers ; and thirdly, for the 

 unusually large number of seeds produced in one capsule." * 



Of our North American Orchids, ten species are identical 

 with those found in Europe, and several are represented either 

 directly or by allied forms in Darwin's " Fertilization of 

 Orchids." This writer, in his descriptions, and Professor Gray, 

 in his observations on American species,f have told their fas- 

 cinating stories so clearly that it would not be necessary for 



* " The Fertilization of Flowers." 

 \ See appended Bibliography. 



