350 GYNANDRIA. 



stigma is a moist shining space, generally concave, 

 and situated, for the most part, in front of the style 

 beneath the anther. In Orchis blfolia^ t. 22, and 

 others, it is just above the orifice of the spur. Con- 

 cerning the nectary of these plants there has been 

 much diversity of opinion. The calcar, spur, in 

 Orchis j and some Other genera, is acknowledged to 

 be such, and holds abundance of honey. This spur 

 is judged by Swartz, as well as Linnaeus, a decisive 

 generic mark of distinction, and it commonly is so; 

 but some Indian species brought by Dr. Buchanan 

 prove it not to be absolute. The remarkable and 

 often highly ornamented lip, considered by Swartz 

 as the only corolla, for he takes all the other leaves 

 of the flower for a calyx, has, by Linnaeus and 

 others, been thought, either a part of the nectary, 

 or, where no spur is present, the only nectary. Nor 

 is this opinion so ill-founded as many botanists sup- 

 pose ; for the front of the lip evidently secretes 

 honey in Ophrys (or Epipactis) ovata, t. 1548, and 

 probably in others not yet attended to. Never- 

 theless, this lip might, like the petals of lilies, be 

 deemed a nectariferous corolla, were it certain that 

 all the other leaves were truly a calyx. But the 

 two inner are so remarkably different from the three 

 outer ones in Ophrys, t. 64, 65, 7\, 383, and above 

 all in Stelis, Exot, Bot. t. 75, that I am most in- 

 clined to take the former for the corolla, the latter 

 being, according to all appearance, a calyx. An 



