266 



BOTANY 



[Chap. X 



Letter 596 I wrote yesterday to thank you for the Epipactis. For the 

 chance of your liking to look at what I have found : take 

 a recently opened flower, drag gently up the stigmatic surface 

 almost any object (the side of a hooked needle), and you will 

 find the cap of the hemispherical rostellum comes off with 

 a touch, and being viscid on under-surface, clings to needle, 

 and as pollen-masses are already attached to the back of 

 rostellum, the needle drags out much pollen. But to do this, 

 the curiously projecting and fleshy summits of anther-cases 

 must at some time be pushed back slightly. Now when an 

 insect's head gets into the flower, when the flap of the labellum 

 has closed by its elasticity, the insect would naturally creep 

 out by the back-side of the flower. And mark when the 

 insect flies to another flower with the pollen-masses adhering 

 to it, if the flap of labellum did not easily open and allow free 

 ingress to the insect, it would surely rub off the pollen on the 

 upper petals, and so not leave it on stigma. It is to know 

 whether I have rightly interpreted the structure of this whole 

 flower that I am so curious to see how insects act. Small 

 insects, I daresay, would crawl in and out and do nothing. 

 I hope that I shall not have wearied you with these details. 



If you would like to see a pretty and curious little sight, 

 look to Orchis pyramidalis, and you will see that the sticky 

 glands are congenitally united into a saddle-shaped organ. 

 Remove this under microscope by pincers applied to foot-stalk 

 of pollen-mass, and look quickly at the spontaneous movement 

 of the saddle-shaped organs and see how beautifully adapted 

 to seize proboscis of moth. 



Letter 597 To J. D. Hooker. 



Dec. 4th [i860]. 



Many thanks about Apocynum and Meyen. 



The latter I want about some strange movements in cells 

 of Drosera, which Meyen * alone seems to have observed. It 

 is very curious, but Trecul disbelieves that Drosera really 

 clasps flies ! I should very much wish to talk over Drosera 

 with you. I did chloroform it, and the leaves which were 

 already expanded did not recover thirty seconds of exposure 

 for three days. I used the expression weight for the bit of 



No observations of Meyen are mentioned in Insectivorous Plants, 



