AND THEIR SYSTEMATICAL ARRANGEMENT. I05 



But, however analogous the outer parts of the 

 flower of Orchidece may be to those of other 

 orders, they differ widely with regard to those 

 that are peculiarly allotted to the office of fructifi- 

 cation ; the sexual parts of the Orchideas being 

 constructed in the most anomalous manner. 



The germ (germen or ovarium), as we have 

 before noticed, is always situated beneath the 

 corolla ; round or oblong, angulated, frequently 

 somewhat twisted (for which reason the position of 

 the flower is different before and after the deve- 

 lopement), generally sessile, sometimes peduncu- 

 lated, (as in Arethusa gentianoides), and often, 

 especially before impregnation, so small, that it 

 resembles a peduncle. From its upper end ad- 

 scends, within the corolla, a fleshy, thick, roundish, 

 pointed or blunt, straight or incurved style, chan- 

 nelled in front, and bearing on its upper extremity 

 the male organs without filaments. 



These male organs consist of masses of pollen, 

 and a containing membrane. Linnjeus, (who says 

 that the lip, his labium inferius nectarii^ .was, in 

 those species which he examined, united or cohe- 



