ORCHIDS 155 



unfold two ovate leaves, resembling those of the 

 lily-of-the-valley, and send up from between them 

 a flower-stalk about six inches tall, upon which clus- 

 ter a dozen or more blossoms, looking like a small 

 swarm of mosquitoes. This effect is due to the 

 slender, spreading petals and sepals, and a diapha- 

 nous and smoke-tinted lip, like a mosquito's wing. 

 This lip has a groove along its centre, leading to the 

 nectar-well, over whose opening the green column 

 rises in the form of a beak, cupped with a pointed 

 lid. In the upper end of the column are two de- 

 pressions containing the pollen masses, two in each. 



I have never seen any insect at work on this 

 flower, and I have observed that the caps over the 

 pollen are never disturbed. Nor has any scientific 

 observer, so far as I have read, been able to tell us 

 of these visits. But the mechanism is practically 

 identical with those already described, and its work- 

 ing is bound to be much the same. 



Here, however, is a flower which presents to the 

 student a rare opportunity for original investiga- 

 tion, and a subject for an essay which shall add dis- 

 tinctly to our fund of knowledge. 



There is another of our native orchids, the grass 

 pink, or Calopogon, which is even more mysterious, 

 in that its mechanism is apparently simple, yet its 

 workings are not understood. 



