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November 4, 1863. 



The President in the chair. 



Mr. A. E. Verrill read the following Notes on the fertili- 

 zation of Cypripedium spectabile Swartz, and Platanthera 

 psycodes Gray, by S. I. Smith of Norway, Me. : — 



Cypkipedium. July 4, — After examining many flowers, and 

 ■watching them for some time, I came upon a bunch which was almost 

 covered with numbers of a minute flower-beetle, apparently attracted 

 by the nectar-like fluid that moistens the long hairs which line the 

 labellum : these beetles were crawling over the flowers in every direc- 

 tion ; and presently one crawled from one of the lateral petals up the 

 column, over one of the poUinia with some difficulty, and out upon the 

 stigma. This was repeated three or four times by different individ- 

 uals ; some of them returning by way of the column, others passing 

 over the sterile stamen on to the labellum. Several beetles passed 

 from the lateral petals down the labellum, without touching the pol- 

 linia or the stigma. Only two beetles were seen to alight upon any 

 of the flowers : one of these went into the labellum, without touching 

 the pollinia or stigma ; the other passed over both. 



Neai'ly all the beetles, when examined with a lens, were found to 

 have little masses of pollen attached to them ; and many could scarcely 

 walk for this reason. Most of the flowers upon which the beetles were 

 found had been fertilized, and, under a strong lens, showed minute 

 particles of pollen among the sharp-pointed papilltB with .which the 

 stigma is beset. 



Of many flowers from different places, nearly all had had the pol- 

 len removed in minute particles from the anther to the stigma; but, in 

 two or three instances, the pollen had been removed in one mass as if 

 by some large insect. 



Platanthera. Aug. 6. — While watching some of these Orchids 

 in a meadow, a Sesia — it proved to be S. Thysbe Fabr. — came to 

 them, and began to suck the nectar while poised on the wing. I at- 

 tempted to catch it ; but it flew to another spike, where I watched it 

 for nearly a minute, while it visited more than a dozen flowers. It 

 commenced at the bottom of the spike, and, proceeding spirally upward, 

 sucked the nectar from each flower in turn. I caught it, and found 

 about thirty pollinia attached to its proboscis near the base : they were 

 all in a space of less than a tenth of an inch in length, and much 

 crowded. Those nearest the base of the proboscis were entirely whole, 

 and seemed to have lost none of their pollen : those nearest the tip 



