23 



Suite different in nue, being yellow spotted with crimson. This 

 as probably some bearing upon the fertilisation, but the re- 

 spective functions of the two sets of flowers have not. I believe, 

 oeen determined. 



MIMICRY IN ORCHIDS. 



SEVERAL instances of mimicry have been given in the foregoing 

 notes, but hundreds of others might be named ; a few of the most 

 distinct will, however, suffice. Many of our British Orchids 

 possess flowers which are very suggestive of insects, as the Fly, 

 Bee, and Spider Orchids, Ophrys muscifera, apifera, and 

 aranifera ; others again resemble animals, such as the Frog 

 Orchid, Peristylis viridis, Orchis Macra, the Monkey Orchid 

 O. Hircina, the Lizard Orchid, and others, which in some degree 

 resemble various creatures. Amongst the exotic Orchids the 

 mimicry is still more striking, as in the Dove plant,. Peristeria 

 elata, Spirito Santo of Panama (see Fig. 4), the flower of which, 

 viewed in front, is much like a Dove about to alight. 



The celebrated Butterfly Orchid, Oncidium Papilio, is also very 

 remarkable, and its extraordinary flowers are said to have 

 attracted the Duke of Devonshire's attention so strongly at one 

 of the London Horticultural Society's Meetings many years ago 

 that it induced him to give his attention to Orchids, and led to 

 the formation of the noted Chatsworth collection. Wings, head, 

 and antennae are strangely imitated, the resemblance to a Butter- 

 fly when first seen being almost startling. In Cycnoches ventri- 

 cosum (Fig. 3) the column is slender and elegantly curved, the lip 

 seeming to represent the body, and the petals the wings of a 

 swan. An extraordinary species, the Toad Orchid, Megaclinium 

 Bufo, has been thus graphically described. " Let the reader 

 imagine a green snake to be pressed flat like a dried flower, and 

 then to have a row of toads, or some such speckled reptiles, drawn 

 up the middle in single file, their backs set up, their forelegs 

 sprawling right and left, and their mouths wide open with a large 

 purple tongue wagging about convulsively ; and a pretty con- 

 siderable approach will be gained to an idea of this strange 

 plant, which, if Pythagoras had but known about it, would have 

 rendered all arguments about the transmigration of souls super- 

 fluous." 



