THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



IO9 



lected in a smaller receptacle in the lower part of the lip," and 

 on either side of the orifice there is " a globular process or 

 swelling which secretes nectar." When the flower first opens 

 the receptacle contains nectar, and at this period the front of 

 the rostellum lies close to the channelled lip, consequently a 

 passage is left, but so narrow that only a fine bristle can be 

 passed down it, and a bee could not pass down its proboscis 

 without touching the furrow of the rostellum. " At this 

 period, the stigma is only slightly viscid." The pollen-masses 

 could now be easily removed, but the passage is so narrow " that 

 the pollen-masses attached to a proboscis cannot possibly be 

 forced in so as to reach the stigma ; they would either be up- 

 turned or broken off ; but after a day or two the column moves 

 a little farther from the lip, and a wider passage is left." Bees, 

 as he observed, " always alighted at the bottom of a spike and 

 crawling spirally up it, sucked one flower after another, the 

 most convenient method ; on the same principle that a wood- 

 pecker climbs up a tree in search of insects." If a bee 

 alighted on the top of a spike, " she would certainly extract the 

 pollen-masses from the uppermost, last opened flowers ; but 

 when visiting the next succeeding flower, of which the column 

 in all probability would not as yet have moved from the lip 

 (for this is very slowly effected), the pollen-masses would be 

 brushed off her proboscis and wasted. 



" But nature suffers no such waste. The bee goes first to the 

 lowest flower, but effects nothing on the first spike till she 

 reaches the upper flowers, and then she withdraws the pollen- 

 masses. She soon flies to another plant, and alighting on the 

 lowest and oldest flower," which now has a wide passage, " the 

 pollen-masses will strike the protuberant stigma. If this 

 stigma has already been fully fertilized, little or no pollen will be 

 left on its dried surface ; but on the next succeeding flower, of 

 which the stigma is adhesive, large sheets of pollen will be left. 

 Then, as soon as the bee arrives near the summit of the spike, 



