THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



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the cup-shaped one of Orchis spectabilis, and may be described 

 as a thin, tapering beak or projection, a shelf as it were, over 

 the stigma ; its tip appearing like a dark dot as you look into 

 the flower. On this shelf lie the two pollen-masses, one in 

 each cell, composed of " thin and tender plates of granular pol- 

 len united by elastic threads" (these plates so brittle that in 5. 

 Romanzoviana I have, on 

 drawing out the pollen- 

 masses, left much of the 

 pollen behind). " In the 

 middle of the rostellum/' 

 to quote from Darwin's ac- 

 count of the kindred British 

 species 5. aiitinnnalis, " a 

 narrow, brown object (fig. 

 34, C) may be seen, bor- 

 dered and covered by trans- *- Threads of the p° llen - r. Rosteiium. 



masses. s. Stigma. 



parent membrane. This «• Nectar receptacle. 



, i • , T . f1 11 ,1 A. Flower with the two lower sepals alone re- 



brown object I will call the moved The labellum has its lip fringed> 



boat -formed disc 

 boat, standing vertically up 

 on its stern, is filled with 

 thick, milky, extremely ad- 

 hesive fluid, which, when 

 exposed to the air, turns 

 brown, and in about one 

 minute sets quite hard. An object is well glued to the boat 

 in four or five seconds, and when the cement is dry the attach- 

 ment is wonderfully strong. 



" The face of the rostellum next the stigma is slightly fur- 

 rowed in a longitudinal line over the middle of the boat, and is 

 endowed with a remarkable kind of irritability ; for if the fur- 

 row be touched very gently with a needle, or if a bristle be laid 

 along the furrow, it instantly splits along its whole length, and 



Fig. 34.— Spiranthes autumnalis, or Ladies' 



Tresses. (From Dariuin.) 

 a. Anther. cl. Margin of clinan- 



/. Pollen- grains. drum. 



T V» j c B. Mature flower with all the sepals and petals re- 

 moved. The position of the labellum (which 

 has moved from the rostellum) and of the up- 

 per sepals is shown by the dotted lines. 



C. Front view of stigma and of the rostellum with 

 its embedded central disc. 



D. Front view of stigma and rostellum after the 

 disc has been removed. 



E. Viscid disc removed and greatly magnified, view- 

 ed posteriorily, and with the attached elastic 

 threads of the pollen-masses; the pollen-grains 

 have been removed from the threads. 



