HABENARIA 53 



another so that there is a space wide enough between the 

 discs of the pollen masses for the broad head of a 

 bumblebee. 



Gray says that these two closely allied orchids are 

 "chiefly remarkable for having their viscid discs projecting 

 much more even than in Habenaria orbiculata, the anterior 

 part of the anther cell and the supporting arm of the stigma 

 united tapering and lengthened to such a degree that the 

 viscid discs are as if raised on a pedicel, projecting consider- 

 ably beyond the rest of the column. The anther cells are 

 nearly horizontal, greatly divergent, but inclined somewhat 

 inward at the ends, so that the discs are presented forward 

 and slightly inward, at least in Habenaria blephariglottis 

 or in Habenaria ciliaris more directly forward. Evidently 

 these projecting discs are to be stuck to the head of some 

 nectar-sucking insect. The stigma, which is rather small, 

 is between the lateral arms, in the same horizontal line with 

 the discs; the discs are small but quite sticky and directly 

 affixed to the extremity of a stalk which, in just proportion 

 to the forward elongation of the anther cell, etc., is remark- 

 ably long and slender, twice or thrice the length of the pollen 

 mass it bears. Upon removal, a slight bending or turning 

 of the slender stalk brings the pollen mass into position for 

 reaching the stigma. The discs in ordinary flowers of 

 Habenaria ciliaris are about a line and a half apart (the 

 English line is the twelfth part of an inch), the slender spur 

 an inch long, from which somewhat of the structure and size 

 of the insect adapted to the work in hand may be estimated." 



