408 The Biology of Flowers 
—the composition of the labellum—the general results have received 
universal assent, namely “that all Orchids owe what they have in 
common to descent from some monocotyledonous plant, which, like 
so many other plants of the same division, possessed fifteen organs 
arranged alternately three within three in five whorls.” The 
alterations which their original form has undergone have persisted 
so far as they were found to be of use. 
We see also that the remarkable adaptations of which we have 
given some examples are directed towards cross-fertilisation. In only 
a few of the orchids investigated by Darwin—other similar cases 
have since been described—was self-fertilisation found to occur 
regularly or usually. The former is the case in the Bee Ophrys 
(Ophrys apifera), the mechanism of which greatly surprised Darwin. 
He once remarked to a friend that one of the things that made 
him wish to live a few thousand years was his desire to see the 
extinction of the Bee Ophrys, an end to which he believed its self- 
fertilising habit was leading”. But, he wrote, “the safest conclusion, 
as it seems to me, is, that under certain unknown circumstances, and 
perhaps at very long intervals of time, one individual of the Bee Ophrys 
is crossed by another?®.” 
If, on the one hand, we remember how much more sure self- 
fertilisation would be than cross-fertilisation, and, on the other hand, 
if we call to mind the numerous contrivances for cross-fertilisation, 
the conclusion is naturally reached that “It is an astonishing fact 
that self-fertilisation should not have been an habitual occurrence. 
It apparently demonstrates to us that there must be something 
injurious in the process. Nature thus tells us, in the most emphatic 
manner, that she abhors perpetual self-fertilisation....For may we not 
further infer as probable, in accordance with the belief of the vast 
majority of the breeders of our domestic productions, that marriage 
between near relations is likewise in some way injurious, that some 
unknown great good is derived from the union of individuals which 
have been kept distinct for many generations‘ ?” 
This view was supported by observations on plants of other 
families, e.g. Papilionaceae; it could, however, in the absence of 
experimental proof, be regarded only as a “working hypothesis.” 
All adaptations to cross-pollination might also be of use simply 
because they made pollination possible when for any reason self- 
pollination had become difficult or impossible. Cross-pollination 
would, therefore, be of use, not as such, but merely as a means of 
pollination in general; it would to some extent serve as a remedy 
| Fertilisation of Orchids (1st edit.), p. 307. 
2 Life and Letters, Vol. ur. p. 276 (footnote). 
3 Fertilisation of Orchids, p. 71. 4 Ibid., p. 359. 
