272 VANILLA PLANTFOLIA 



attached by one angle close behind one another, and pointing back- 

 wards, but easily elevated or depressed. Andrcecium and style fused 

 into the column, which is elongated, 1J inch long and tapering, 

 occupying the posterior part of the flower, hairy below, and 

 perforated throughout its length. Fertile anther solitary, sup- 

 ported on a flat horizontal prolongation of the column, which is 

 bent over at the extremity, and hooded with 2 lateral processes 

 (staminodia ?), pollen granular, in two pollen-masses (pollinodia) 

 enclosed in a membranous pouch, each 2-lobed. Ovary inferior, 



2 inches long, cylindrical and stalk-like, fleshy, 1 -celled, with 



3 pairs of parietal placentae bearing very numerous minute ovules. 

 Style fused with the column, with a central canal which expands 

 at the orifice into a horizontal chink below the anther, from 

 which it is completely cut off by its flat, truncate, deflexed, upper 

 lip, lower lip of the chink shorter, also reflexed. Fruit a fleshy, 

 slender, bluntly trigonous, curved pod, 5 8 inches long ; peri- 

 carp smooth, longitudinally striate, dehiscing loculicidally from 

 the apex more than halfway down into 2 unequal valves ; cavity 

 1 -celled, somewhat triangular, with the pairs of placentas pro- 

 jecting from each side, each branched into two recurved lobes, 

 and bearing innumerable minute seeds, imbedded in a slimy juice, 

 the rounded angles lined with a layer of microscopic unicellular 

 secreting hairs. Seeds very small, lenticular, oval in outline, 

 hard, black, opaque, without any investing sac ; testa rather thick, 

 crustaceous, marked with shallow reticulations, embryo filling the 

 seed, without a clear differentiation of the parts. 



Habitat. This singular plant is found wild in the hot moist 

 woods of several states of south-east Mexico, climbing and 

 epiphytic on forest trees j it is also extensively cultivated in the 

 same country, especially in the province of Vera Cruz. Vanilla 

 is also grown to a large extent in Mauritius, Bourbon, Mada- 

 gascar, and Java. It was introduced into England about 1800 by 

 the Marquis of Blandford, and grows vigorously in our hot- 

 houses, flowering sparingly in April and May. As with other 

 orchids, fertilisation is, no doubt, naturally brought about by insects, 

 though the precise mode has not yet been seen ; it may, however, 



