Orchid blossoms 



The orchids are usually very irregular, and six- 

 parted. The ovary is one-celled, and becomes a 

 pod containing an enormous yield of minute, spore- 

 like seeds (Fig. 3) in some species, as in the vanilla 

 pod, to the number of a million, and in one species 

 of the maxillaria, it has been computed, 1,750,000. 



The pollen, unlike ordinary flowers, is gathered 

 together in waxy masses of varying consistency, 

 variously formed and disposed in the blossom, its 



Fig. 2. 



grains being connected with elastic cobwebby 

 threads, which occasionally permit the entire mass 

 to be stretched to four or five times its length, 

 and recover its original shape when released. This 

 is specially noticeable in the showy orchid, later 

 described. The grains thus united are readily dis- 

 entangled from their mass when brought into con- 

 tact with a viscid object, as the stigma. 



But the most significant botanical contrast and 

 distinction is found in the union of the style and 



127 



