CYPRIPEDIUM 5 



pouch called the labellum or lip, within which many a 

 bumblebee finds a sweet tavern. But he does not escape 

 paying his toll unless he bites or claws or bursts his way 

 through the painted walls, as many an unmannerly guest 

 does. 



In the illustration (Plate 11.) we may see how excellently 

 this orchid has adapted itself to its insect visitors by a 

 division of labour. Instead of three or six stamens, all 

 fashioned alike, as in the lilies and irises, we find a curious 

 combination of stamens and stigmas that at first appear 

 contorted and squeezed together, but that are most cunningly 

 adapted to divide the labour. One stamen is sterile (A), 

 but far from being useless, it is spread out into a triangular 

 roof that covers the opening to the labellum, so that no 

 water may drip into the exquisite chamber, and the two 

 anthers (B), filled with pollen and stigma (C), as seen from 

 the under surface in Fig. 3, are kept dry. 



The pollen that lies in these anthers is a pulpy, powdery 

 mass, and so sticky that as an insect brushes by the openings 

 of the anther cells it cannot fail to carry some off with it. 

 Immediately under this improvised stamen roof lie the 

 three stigmas united into one (C) and covered, not with a 

 smeary, viscid secretion, but with a comb of teeth that scrapes 

 the pollen from the back and head of any large insect that 

 tries to squeeze his way in at the radiantly coloured but low- 

 eaved portal. 



Once he is in (Fig. 4) and has sipped up the secretion 

 that exudes from the hairs that line the inner surface of the 



