194 THE ORCHID REVIEW. (Sept.-Oct., 1918. 
XXiv. p. 310), when it flowered in the Buitenzorg Botanic Garden, Java. 
We only know the latter from description, but rather suspect that C. 
pulchrum will prove identical with the older plant when materials are 
available for comparison. It is also comparable with C. Thouarsii, Lindl., 
the original species of the genus, which, however, has very strongly 
ciliate petals. This is a native of Mauritius and Madagascar, and is also 
found in Polynesia. 
As regards the arrangement of the flowers in Cirrhopetalum, we may 
repeat the remarks of Lindley when describing C. chinense (Bot. Reg., 1842, 
Misc. p. 37. There is no longer any occasion for speculative minds to 
occupy themselves with the important investigation of. the cause that may 
have led the Chinese to invent strange figures of men aud women with 
their chins in perpetual motion, for here is an explanation of it. We have 
here a plant from China, one of whose lobes is exactly a tongue and chin, 
which are so unstable as to be in a state of continual oscillation. The 
flowers are arranged in a circle, and all look outwards; so that on whatever 
side the umbel is regarded, it still presents to the eye the same row of 
grinning faces and wagging chins. 
CURIOUS proposition as to the origin of the pollinia of Asclepiads is 
cited at page 184, and invites a similar enquiry as to the origin of 
these bodies in Orchids, for there is a perfect analogy between them, as was 
long ago pointed out by Robert Brown, and later by Darwin. Two features 
are possessed in common by the groups mentioned—so widely separated in 
other respects—namely the cohesion of the pollen grains into masses, called 
pollinia, and the production of a viscus by which they are attached to the 
bodies of the fertilising insects, this viscus being secreted by a special organ 
called the rostellum. Brown pointed out that there was no real addition to 
the number of organs, the apparent addition being a modification of the 
stigma. Healso added that there was what might be called a third 
peculiarity in the two groups, the apparent necessity for an unusual number 
of pollen tubes to act in concert. 
Darwin sought for the origin of these peculiarities, and attributed them 
to the action of natural selection working upon different materials, the 
change being effected through the preservation of successive variations of a 
useful character, identical results thus being effected in two widely separated 
groups by modifications of the self-same organs, but with considerable 
differences in detail. It is this conclusion which is challenged by wily . 
his question as to the origin of the pollinia in Asclepiads, which 1s 
ee THE POLLINIA OF ORCHIDS. 
