294 MONOCOTYLEDONS. 



Note the strap-shaped leaves, which come up in a rosette 

 along with, and surrounding, the inflorescence about the 

 middle or end of April ; each leaf clasps the stem at the base 

 and usually has dark purplish spots or blotches. 



Examine the flowers, noting their spiral arrangement on 

 the stem, the youngest ones being at the top. Note the 

 bract below each flower (Fig. 114) ; the three sepals, alike in 

 form and size ; the three petals, one of which is larger than 

 and different in shape from the other two. This large petal, 

 the Idbellum, consists of a broad lip and a curved spur ; it is 

 rather like the spurred petal in a Yiolet, but it contains no 

 liquid honey. The thick wall of the spur, however, consists of 

 sweet tissue, as can be perceived by chewing it, and an insect 

 can only get the sweet juice by scraping the inside of the spur. 



The structure of the inner parts of the flower is rather 

 complex, but the essential points for our purpose are easily 

 made out. Do you see, above the mouth of the spur, a pro- 

 jecting mass consisting of two club-like structures, side by 

 side, arched over by the two small petals and one of the 

 sepals, and below these structures a rounded knob ? By 

 slicing the flower longitudinally, so that the slice passes down 

 through the middle of this mass and the middle of the 

 labellum, and by careful inspection, you will find that each 

 of the club-shaped structures is a pocket which opens by a 

 vertical slit and contains a greenish club-like body with a 

 slender stalk, and that the stalks of these two bodies are 

 joined below to a sticky disc resting on the rounded knob 

 below. The green clubs are called pollinia, and the two 

 together represent an anther, in each of whose lobes the 

 pollen-grains are massed together into packets joined by 

 branching elastic threads. 



The stamen and the style have grown up together, so that 

 the stamen stands above the knob-like stigma. The rounded 

 sticky disc (glandula) at the base of the pollinia lies in a 

 small cup-like structure, just above the stigma. This cup 

 (rostellum) splits readily on the slightest touch perhaps 

 spontaneously so as to expose the disc. A bee visiting the 

 flower pushes its head against the disc as it pokes its tongue 

 into the spur, and when it leaves the flower it carries off the 

 pollinia planted on its head by means of the sticky disc. 

 Then the disc contracts in such a way as to bring the pollinia 



