THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



"5 



from which somewhat of the structure and size of the insect 

 adapted to the work in hand may be estimated." 



These two Habenarias have curious white ear-shaped append- 

 ages on the outside of the anther, small in size but so strongly 

 contrasted in H. ciliaris with the yellow of the anther as to be 

 conspicuous ; and if the reader has a good herbarium to turn 

 to, he will probably notice that these little auricles are visible 

 without a glass, in both species, and have kept their color after 

 the other parts have turned brown. I can find no printed allu- 

 sion to them ; even Gray's Manual, which carefully mentions the 

 strange club-shaped processes in H. tridentata, being silent on 

 this point. Professor Gray writes me that he has noticed these 

 " crests," as he calls them, but does not think they correspond 

 to the fertile stamens in Cypripedium. Is not the answer to 

 this pretty riddle hidden away somewhere in the following 

 passage from Darwin? 



" Although the two anthers a T and a 2 of the inner whorl 

 (see Fig. 2) are not fully and normally developed in any Orchid, 

 excepting Cypripedium, their rudiments are generally present 

 and are often utilized ; for they often form the membranous 

 sides of the cup-like clinandrum on the summit of the column. 

 These rudiments thus aid their fertile brother anther. In the 

 young flower-bud of Malaxis paludosa the close resemblance be- 

 tween the two membranes of the clinandrum and the fertile 

 anther in shape and texture was most striking ; it was impos- 

 sible to doubt that in these two membranes we had two rudi- 

 mentary anthers. In Liparis pendula and some other species, 

 these two rudimentary anthers form not only the clinandrum, 

 but likewise wings, which project on each side of the entrance 

 into the stigmatic cavity, and serve as guides for the insertion 

 of the pollen masses. . . 



" In nearly all the members of the Ophreae and Neotteae two 

 small papillae, or auricles as they have often been called, stand 

 in exactly the position which the anthers a x and a 2 would have 



