THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



IO7 



the cup-shaped one of Orchis spectabilis, and may be described 

 as a thin, tapering beak or projection, a shelf as it were, over 

 the stigma; its tip appearing like a dark dot as you look into 

 the flower. On this shelf lie the two pollen-masses, one in 

 each cell, composed of " thin and tender plates of granular pol- 

 len united by elastic threads" (these plates so brittle that in S. 

 Romanzoviana I have, on 

 drawing out the pollen- 

 masses, left much of the 

 pollen behind). " In the 

 middle of the rostellum," 

 to quote from Darwin's ac- 

 count of the kindred British 

 species 5. autumiialis, " a 



, 1 • . zr Fig. 34. — Spiranthes autumnalis, or Ladies' 



narrow, brown object (fig. Tresses . {Front Darwin-) 



34, C) may be seen, bor- "• t n 1 t , her - . cL Ma ;* in of clinan - 



J ^' ' J ' /. Pollen- grams. drum. 



dered and covered by trans- '■ Threa dsof thepoiien- r . Rosteiium. 



masses. s. Stigma. 



parent membrane. This *• Nectar receptacle. 



b-^,.,., ~u:^„*. T "11 11 it A - Flower with the two lower sepals alone re- 

 rown object I will call the moved The labe]lum has its ,- p fring e d . 



boat - formed disc. This 

 boat, standing vertically up 



Mature flower with all the sepals and petals re- 

 moved. The position of the labellum (which 

 has moved from the rostellum) and of the up- 

 per sepals is shown by the dotted lines. 

 Oil its Stem, is filled with C Front view of stigma and of the rostellum with 

 ...... I j its embedded central disc. 



thick, milky, extremely ad- d. Front view of stigma and rostellum after the 



hesive fluid, which, When F ^^ been removed. 



£.. Viscid disc removed and greatly magnified, view- 

 eXDOSed tO the air turns ed P oster i° r >ly. ar >d with the attached elastic 



threads of the pollen-masses; the pollen-grains 

 brown, and in about One have been removed from the threads. 



minute sets quite hard. An object is well glued to the boat 

 in four or five seconds, and when the cement is dry the attach- 

 ment is wonderfully strong. 



" The face of the rostellum next the stigma is slightly fur- 

 rowed in a longitudinal line over the middle of the boat, and is 

 endowed with a remarkable kind of irritability ; for if the fur- 

 row be touched very gently with a needle, or if a bristle be laid 

 along the furrow, it instantly splits along its whole length, and 



