218 DARWIN'S LETTERS TO R. TRIMEN 



ing briefly the peculiarities of structure which 

 the author had noted as governing access to the 

 nectary, so as almost to compel the removal of 

 the pollinia by insect visitors of the right kind. 



1. 



Jan. 31st [1863] DOWN. 



BROMLEY. 



KENT. S.E. 

 MY DEAR SIR 



I thank you most sincerely for your pleasant letter 

 and M.S. on Orchids. Your sketches seem to me very 

 good, and wonderful under circumstances of their execu- 

 tion. I cannot say how much interested I have been 

 in studying your descriptions. I think I understand 

 all; but these Orchids (except Eulophia) are so sur- 

 prisingly different from anything that I have seen that 

 I could hardly make them out for some time and even 

 fancied in some cases that you had miscalled upper 

 sepal and Labellum. But at last I see my way. I am 

 no more a Botanist than you say you are, and I know 

 nothing of any orchids except those seen by me. 

 Therefore I was astonished at the upper sepal being pro- 

 duced into a nectary ; even more astonished at stigma 

 standing high above the pollinia &c &c. How curious 

 is pollinium of Disperis ! What beautiful and new 

 contrivances you show, and how well you have studied 

 them ! Upon the whole I think No. V. & VI. unnamed 

 (I have sent your drawings to Prof. Harvey to name 

 for me) have interested me most : everything seems to 

 occur in a reversed direction compared with our true 

 Orchis. You do not mention any movement of the 

 pollinia, when attached to an object ; and as you are so 

 acute an observer, I infer that there are no such move- 



