56 ÖSTEKBEUG, OM KÄRLSTRÄNGFÖRLOPPET HOS ORCHIDEERNA. 



Orchid examined, — even when the labellum is very narrow^ 

 or quite simple, as in Malaxis, Herminium and Habenaria.» — 



— »The labeilum is formed of ene peta! and two peta- 



loid stamens of the outer whoii, likewise completely confluent.» 



Ytterligare pag. 302—305:, 



»I have encountered only one case of difficulty on the fore- 

 going views, namely in Habenaria, and in the allied Bonatea. — 

 — — — The anomaly relätes only to the vessels supplying 

 the sides of the upper sepal and of the two upper petals; the 

 vessels running into their mid-ribs and into all the other more 

 important organs pursue the same identical course as in all the 

 other Ophree. The vessels on the sides of the upper sepal^ 

 instead of uniting whit the mid-rib, and entering the posterior 

 ovarian group, diverge and enter the postero-lateral groups: 

 again, the vessels on the anterior side of the upper petals, in- 

 stead of uniting whit the midrib and entering the postero- 

 lateral ovarian groups, diverge, or wander from their proper 

 course, and enter the antero-lateral groups. 



This anomaly is so far of importance, as it throws some 

 doubt on the view which I have taken of the labellum being 

 always an organ compounded of one petal and two petaloid sta- 

 mens; for if any one were to assume that from some unknown 

 cause the lateral vessels of the lower petal in an early proge- 

 nitor of the Orehidean order had wandered from their proper 

 course into the antero-lateral ovarian groups, and that this 

 structure had been inherited by all existing Orchids, even by 

 those, whith the smallest and simplest labellums, I could answer 

 only as follows; but the answer is, I think, satisfactory. From 

 the analogy of other monocotyledonous plants, we might except 

 the hidden presence of fifteen organs in the flowers of Orchids 

 arranged alternately in five whorls; and in Orchid-flowers Ave 

 do find fifteen groups of vessels exactly thus arranged. Hence 

 there is a strong probability that the wessels A2 and A3, Avhich 

 enter the sides of the labellum, not in one or two cases, but 



