OPHRYDE^—SERAPIADINjE—OPHRYS 223 



Monsieur A. Pouyanne, President of tlie Court of Appeal at Algiers, made the 

 important discovery that in Algeria Ophrjs speadum Link, is solely pollinated by the 

 males of Dielis ciliata F., a bee rather larger than a hive-bee, each segment of whose 

 abdomen is fringed with long red hairs. These emerge from the buried pupas some 

 time before the females, and engage in ceaseless quest for the latter, pouncing eagerly 

 on any which may appear. If a few spikes of O. speculum are taken in the hand where 

 the female pup^e lie buried, males come quickly and alight on the flowers. They do 

 not bring the proboscis into play, or attempt to seek nectar. They evidently mistake 

 the lip of the flower for a female Dielis, which it resembles by its fringe of long red 

 hairs, and by the violet-blue metallic sheen of the oval shield in the middle of the 

 lip, very suggestive of the reflections from the closed blue wings of the female. 

 The males have colourless wings. The resemblance of the lip to an insect, embodied 

 in the Linnean name Ophrjs insectifera, is not a mere fancy of the imagination, and 

 the popular names Bee Orchid and Fly Orchid show that the likeness was widely 

 recognised. Some have hazarded the suggestion that the resemblance to an insect 

 was to prevent cattle from grazing on the plants, others that it was to keep insects 

 from the flowers. Both are wide of the mark. A full account of M. Pouyanne's 

 twenty years of observation, which was first pubhshed in 191 6,' supplemented by 

 my own observations in the south of France, was given in/.i3. pp. 33-40 (Feb. 1925). 

 In the section Pseud-ophrys Godf., which contains O.fusca, 0. lutea, etc., the markings 

 on the lip (and not the whole lip itself) represent an insect on the flower in the 

 "reverse position", i.e. with the head turned towards the tip of the lip, and the 

 abdomen in the centre of the flower. The male on alighting turns round and assumes 

 the same position, thrusting its abdomen into a cavity lined with hairs at the base 

 of the lip, keeping it in constant movement, and finally carrying off the poUinia on 

 the tip of the abdomen. These remarkable observations were naturally received with 

 some scepticism, but they were unexpectedly confirmed by the discovery that an 

 Australian orchid, Cryptostjlis leptochila, is poUinated by Lissopi?»pla semipunctata 

 Kirby, an iclineumon-fly, in a similar manner, the insect being attracted by sexual 

 appeal, and the pollinia being carried off on the tip of the abdomen.^ 



Each pollinium stands erect on a minute disc with a ball of extremely adhesive 

 material beneath. This is enclosed in a pouch filled with fluid, as it sets hard like 

 cement on exposure to the air. On the sfightest touch by an insect the pouch swings 

 back and exposes the viscid matter, which at once adheres to the insect's head with 

 sufficient firmness to withdraw the pollinia from the anther-cells. The visitor carries 

 off one or both pollinia standing upright on its head. The usual downward move- 

 ment of the pollinia after withdrawal, through nearly a right angle, is slow (in 



■ Correvon and Pouyanne, /«/r«. d'Uort. de France, p. 5 (Fevr.-Mars, 191 6). 

 ^ /.B. p. 97 (1929), with coloured plate. 



