ACHROANTHES 121 



an exclamation of delight from flower lovers, so daintily 

 poised and delicately crisp is the fresh, erect little plant in 

 either species. 



The sepals of the two species are long and strap shaped, 

 though their length is so small as to be almost infinitesimal; 

 two of the petals are mere threads, and in the third, the lip 

 is more expanded. All are fresh and dainty and invite tiny 

 insects to come to their aid in transferring their pollen masses 

 from one flower to another. 



These pollen masses are four in number, two lying in 

 each sac, the pairs cohering at their summit (Plate XLVII., 



Fig- 3)- 



No one has really studied our American species in the 

 true Darwinian painstaking manner. But it would be an 

 interesting occupation for some modern Thoreau who loved 

 camping in wet woods, or near a swamp, to set up a micro- 

 scope in a small hut, and find out the nature of the small 

 flies and insects that haunt these tiny orchids. 



He would doubtless find the structure somewhat the 

 same as in an Indian form of Adder's-mouth which was 

 sent to Darwin by Dr. Hooker from Kew. In this he found 

 in a young bud a minute regular tongue-shaped projection on 

 the crest of the rostellum, formed of cells, which when slightly 

 disturbed resolved themselves into a drop of viscid matter. 



This drop of viscid matter probably attaches the end 

 of the pair of pollen masses to the head of the insect that 

 enters the flower, but exactly how we cannot tell, until some 

 one has either moved a patch of Adder's-mouth from its 



