240 NATIVE BRITISH ORCHIDACE^ 



In II of these the caudicles had been gnawed by snails. Omitting these, there still 

 remained 13 flowers from wliich one or both poUinia had been removed. In 1922 

 at Vence above Nice I found a spike from the lowest flower of which both poUmia 

 had been removed, and two others from the lowest flower of which one polhnium 

 had been taken. Three days later, on May 17th, I found three spikes from a flower 

 of which both pollinia, and two spikes from a flower of which one polhnium had 

 been cleanly removed. This could only have been due to the agency of msects, and 

 shows that their visits are not so rare as might be supposed. Long and often as 

 Darwin watched plants of the Bee Ophrys, he never saw one visited by any msect. 

 Smith, however, in his Catalogue of Plants of S. Kent, p. 25 (1829), says: "Mr Price 

 has frequently witnessed attacks made upon the Bee Orchis by a bee, similar to those 

 of the troublesome Apis muscorum" . What this sentence means Darwm could not 

 conjecture,! for in those days the existence of any other lure than honey or edible 

 tissue had never been suspected. In the light of the recent observations of M. Pouyanne 

 on Algerian species of Ophrys (see Ophrys) and my own discoveries of the visits of 

 Gorytes mystaceus to O. muscifera, and of Eucera tiiherculata to 0. arachnites, Mr Price s 

 statement is easily intelligible. He had the great good fortune to witness the visits 

 of some male Hymenopteron to 0. apifera, attracted by the resemblance of the lip 

 to a female of its species. He probably watched plants growing near a bank con- 

 taining pup« of the not yet emerged females, on ground over which the earlier 

 developed males were carrying on their eager quest for a mate. Well might he refer 

 to these visits as attacks, for to an onlooker the bee appears to be trying to stmg the 

 labellum of the Ophrys. The reason why it is so extremely difficult to witness the visits 

 of Hymenoptera to Ophrys is that there is very little chance of domg so unless the 

 plants are growing, or unless cut flowers are taken, near the ground m which the 

 burrows of the insect concerned are situated. The males seem not to wander far as 

 a rule from the banks, etc., where the females still lie in the pupa state. 



G. E. Smiths states that the pollinia are withdrawn by the contraction ot the 

 caudicles with so much elasticity that they strike the stigma, and C. B. Clarke3 speaks 

 of the same thing, but as the length of the caudicles in situ is greater than the distance 

 from the base of the pollinia to the rostellum, and as the pollinia are so frequently 

 found dangling free in front of the stigma, this appears to be an exceptional occur- 

 rence It might perhaps be due to an abnormal lengthenmg of the column. 



apifera\\x^^t% with Cephalanthera grandiflora the distinction of having been 

 organised for two distinct but concurrent methods of pomnation-(i) cross-poUina- 

 tion by insects in the usual manner, (2) self-pollination if no insects of the right size 

 visit the flowers. Hitherto it has been regarded as wholly self-fertUised.4 



. Darwin, Vert. Onh. ed. z, p. 56. ; Cf P^- f- ff'^' 53- 



3 J.B. p. ^69 (188Z). ' J-B- P- ^85 (1920- 



