Il8 ORCHIDS. 



" Estimating in the same manner the smaller seeds in 

 Orchis maculata I found the number nearly the same, 

 namely, 6,200 ; and as I have often seen above thirty cap- 

 sules on the same plant, the total amount will be 186,300, 

 a prodigious number for one small plant to bear. As this 

 Orchid is perennial, and cannot in most places be increas- 

 ing in number, one seed alone of this large number, once 

 in every few years, produces a mature plant. I examined 

 many seeds of the Cephalanthera, and very few seemed 

 bad. 



"To give an idea of what the above figures really mean, 

 I will briefly show the possible rate of increase of O. mac- 

 ulata : an acre of land would hold 174,240 plants, each 

 having a space of six inches square, which is rather closer 

 than they could flourish together; so that, allowing twelve 

 thousand bad seeds, an acre would be thickly clothed by 

 the progeny of a single plant. At the same rate of in- 

 crease the grandchildren would cover a space slightly ex- 

 ceeding the island of Anglesea, and the great-grandchil- 

 dren of a single plant would nearly (in the proportion of 

 47 to 50) clothe with one uniform green carpet the entire 

 surface of the land throughout the globe. What checks 

 this unlimited multiplication cannot be told. 



" The minute seeds within their light coats are well 

 fitted for wide dissemination ; and I have several times 

 observed seedlings in my orchard and in a newly planted 

 wood which must have come from some little distance. 



" Yet it is notorious that Orchids are sparingly distrib- 

 uted; for instance, this district is highly favorable to the 

 order, for within a mile of my house nine genera, includ- 

 ing thirteen species, grow ; but of these only one, Orchis 

 mario, is sufficiently abundant to make a conspicuous fea- 



