38 OPHEBJi;. . Chap. I. 



dicates that moths do not go to work in a quite sense- 

 less Tnanner.* 



Nature may be said to hare tried this same experi- 

 ment, but not quite fairly;, for Orchis pyramidalis, 

 as shown by Mr- Bentham,t often produces monstrous 

 flowers without a nectary, or with a short and imperfect 

 one. Sir C. LyeU sent me several spikes from Folke- 

 stone with many flowers in this condition : I found six 

 without a vestige of a nectary, and their poUinia had 

 not been removed. In about a dozen other flowers, 

 having either short nectaries, or with the labellum 

 imperfect, the guiding ridges being either absent or 

 developed in excess and rendered foliaceous, the 

 pollinia in one alone had been removed, and the ova- 

 rium of another flower was swelling. Yet I found 

 that the saddle-formed discs in theSe eighteen flowers 

 were perfect, and that they readily clasped a needle 

 when inserted in the proper place. Moths had removed 

 the pollinia, and had thoroughly fertilised- the perfect 

 flowers on the same spikes ; so that they must have 

 neglected the monstrous flowers, or, if visiting theih, 

 the derangement in the complex mechanism of the 

 parts had hindered the removement of the pollinia, 

 and prevented their fertilisation. 



Notwithstanding these several facts I still suspected 

 that nectar must be secreted .by our common Orchids, 



* Kurr C Bedeutung der Nek- the corolla, leaving the nectary, of 



tarien,' 1833, p. 123) cut off the forty flowers of Orchis mono, and 



nectaries of iifteen flowers of these set no capsules; and this 



Gymnarlenia conopsea, and they case shows that insects are guided 



did not produce a single capsule : to the flowers by the corolla, 



he also tnated in the same man- Sixteen flowers of Platanthera 



nur fifteen flowers of Platanthera treated in the $ame manner bore 



or Sabenaria hifolia, and these only one capsule. Similar experi- 



set only five rapsules ; but then it ments made by him on Gymna- 



sliould be observed that the nee- duuia seem to rao open to doubt. 

 laries of both these oroliids con- f ' Handbook of the British 



tain free nectar. He also cut ofl:' Flora,' 1858, p. 501. 



