^ INTRODUCTION. 



modified forms in the vegetable kingdom, I have 

 thought that the facts to be given might lead some 

 observers to look more curiously into the habits of our 

 several native species. An examination of their many- 

 beautiful contrivances will exalt the whole vegetable 

 kingdom in most persons' estimation. I fear, however, 

 that the necessary details are too minute and complex 

 for any one who has not a strong taste for Natural 

 History. This treatise affords me also an opportunity 

 of attempting to show that the study of organic beings 

 may be as interesting to an observer who is fully con- 

 vinced that the structure of each is due to secondary 

 laws, as to one who views every trifling detail of 

 structure as the result of the direct interposition of the 

 Creator. 



I must premise that Christian Konrad Sprengel, in 

 his curious and valuable work, * Das entdeckte Geheim- 

 niss der Natur,' published in 1793, gave an excellent 

 outline of the action of the several parts in the genus 

 Orchis ; for he well knew the position of the stigma, 

 and he discovered that insects were necessary to remove 

 the pollen-masses.* But he overlooked many curious 

 contrivances, — a consequence, apparently, of his belief 

 that the stigma generally receives pollen from the 

 same flower. Sprengel, likewise, has partially described 

 the structure of Epipactis ; but in the case of Listera 

 he entirely misunderstood the remarkable phenomena 

 characteristic of that genus, which has been well de- 

 scribed by Dr. Hooker in the 'Philosophical Trans- 



* Delpino has found (' Ult. Os- In this memoir Waetchf r, who 



Borvazioui sulla Dicogamia,' Part does not seem to have been ac- 



ii. 1875, p. loOj amemoir by Waet- quainted with Spiengel's work, 



cher, published in 1801 in Roe- sliows that insects aie necessary 



mer's ' Archiv fUr die Botanik.' t. for the fertilisation of various 



ii. p. 11, which apparently has re- orchids, and describes well the 



ixiained unknown to everyone else. wonderful structure of Neottia. 



