192 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



leaves, sometimes as large as a dinner -plate, 

 spreading flat upon the mould, and surmounted 

 by the slender leafless stalk, with its terminal 

 loose raceme of greenish-white bloom. 



A single blossom of the species is shown in 

 Fig. 5, the parts indexed. The opening to the 

 nectary is seen just below the stigmatic surface, 

 the nectary itself being nearly two inches in 

 length. The pollen is in two club-like bodies, 

 each hidden within a fissured pouch on either 

 side of the stigma, and coming to the surface at 

 the base in their opposing sticky discs as shown. 

 Many of the group Habenaria or Platanthera, to 

 which this flower belongs, are similarly planned. 

 But mark the peculiarly logical association of the 

 parts here exhibited. The nectary implies a wel- 

 come to a tongue two inches long, and will re- 

 ward none other. This clearly shuts out the 

 bees, butterflies, and smaller moths. What in- 

 sect, then, is here implied? The sphinx -moth 

 again, one of the lesser of the group. A larger 

 individual might sip the nectar, it is true, but its 

 longer tongue would reach the base of the tube 

 without effecting the slightest contact with the 

 pollen, which is of course the desideratum here 

 embodied, and which has reference to a tongue 

 corresponding to the length of the nectary. There 



