BRIEFER ARTICLES 
NOTES ON ORCHIDS 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
Cattteya Mosstar Hooker.—Mr. KnupseENn, of Boulder, Colorado, 
has been very successful in growing this fine species under glass. On 
one occasion, it was found that the flowers were being fertilized, and it 
turned out that this was done by Bombus Huntii Greene, which gained 
access to the greenhouse. I now possess one of these bees, with several 
C. Mossiae pollinia attached to the mesothorax. The case is interesting, 
since this species of bee has had of course no previous experience with 
Cattleya or with any closely related plant. Mr. Knupsen believes that 
honey bees do not pollinate Cattleya. 
CYTHEREA BULBOSA (L.) House.—On June 8, 1914, my wife and I 
were able to study this plant in life at Gresham, Colorado. It grew on 
a damp hillside with a north exposure, under Populus tremuloides and 
young Engelmann spruce, with Arnica cordifolia Hook., Chamaenerion 
angustifolium (L.) Scop., and Fragaria. We were particularly anxious 
to see the process of pollination, but in this we were disappointed, owing 
to the bad weather. We saw no insects on the orchids, but a few Bombus 
were flying around. There can be little doubt that the work is done 
by Bombus, which bending down (almost standing on its head) to get 
the nectar, would receive the pollen on the upper side of its thorax. 
In Idaho this orchid is represented by a variety, Cytherea bulbosa 
occidentalis (Calypso bulbosa occidentalis Holzinger, Contrib. Nat. Herb. 
3251. 1895), in which the beard on the lip is white instead of yellow. 
In the Colorado form it is yellow. There is, however, some question 
whether the Colorado plant is the same as that of the northeastern 
States, so I give some descriptive details from the living plant as 
observed at Gresham. 
Scape lilac; sepals and petals “similar, ascending, spreading” 
(Ames), magenta (nearly rose vineaux of GRAVEREAUX, but a little 
bluer), about 20 mm. long, the median sepal exceeding the lip (wholly 
different from the figure in Britton and Brown’s Iilustrated flora); 
sepals and petals 3-veined, but the veins not evident except on close 
331] {Botanical Gazette, vol. 59 
