38 OPHRE^. Chap. I. 



dicates that moths do not go to work in a quite sense- 

 less manner.* 



Nature may be said to have tried this same experi- 

 ment, but not quite fairly; for Orchis pyramidalis, 

 as shown by Mr. Bentham,t often produces monstrous 

 flowers without a nectary, or with a short and imperfect 

 one. Sir C. Lyell sent me several spikes from Folke- 

 stone with many flowers in this condition : I found six 

 without a vestige of a nectary, and their pollinia had 

 not been removed. In about a dozen other flowers, 

 having either short nectaries, or with the labellum 

 imperfect, the guiding ridges being either absent or 

 developed in excess and rendered foliaceous, the 

 pollinia in one alone had been removed, and the ova- 

 rium of another flower was swelling. Yet I found 

 that the saddle-formed discs in these eighteen flowers 

 were perfect, and that they readily clasped a needle 

 when inserted in the proper place. Moths had removed 

 the pollinia, and had thoroughly fertilised the perfect 

 flowers on the same spikes ; so that they must have 

 neglected the monstrous flowers, or, if visiting them, 

 the derangement in the complex mechanism of the 

 parts had hindered the removement of the pollinia, 

 and prevented their fertilisation. 



Notwithstanding these several facts I still suspected 

 that nectar must be secreted by our common Orchids, 



* Kurr (' Beilcutung der Nek- the corolla, leaving the nectary, of 



tarien,' 1833, p 123) cut off the forty flowers of Orchis morio, and 



nectaries of fifteen flowers of tliese set no capsules; and this 



Gymnarhnia comqjsea, and tliey case shows that insects are guided 



did not produce a single capsule : to the flowers by the corolla, 



he also tnated in the same man- Sixteen flowers of Platanthera 



ner fifteen flowers of Platanthera treated in tlie same manner bore 



or Hahenaria hifoUa, and these only one capsule. Similar experi- 



set only five capsules; but then it ments made by him on Gymna- 



should be observed that the nee- denia seem to me open to doubt, 

 taries of both these orchids con- t 'Handbook of the British 



tain free nectar. He also cut off Flora,' 1858, p. 501. 



