330 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [NoveMBER, 1913. 
sexual Forms of Catasetum, with special reference to the remarks of Darwin 
and others.” 
It was shown that the females of three different Catasetums passed 
under the name of Monachanthus viridis, and that Myanthus barbatus was 
the male of one of them, and distinct from C. tridentatum, with which it 
had been confused. It was also shown that the species could be arranged 
in four very natural sections, Eucatasetum, Myanthus, Ecirrhose, and 
Pseudocatasetum, whose characters were given. 
Catasetum Darwinianum is a native of Mt. Roraima, whence it was 
introduced by Messrs. Sander, and flowered at Kew in 1887, producing a 
male and a female inflorescence on either side of the same pseudobulb, 
thus being very different from the condition in which it more recently 
flowered. A painting, natural side, of the plant as it flowered originally is 
preserved at Kew. The species was named in compliment to the great 
naturalist, Charles Darwin, but was not one of those investigated by him in 
his work. 
At the present time the females of some twenty species are known, 
representing about a third of the genus, so that there is still plenty of scope 
for those who may be able to observe the plants in their native wilds or to 
cultivate them at home. It is greatly to be desired that this blank in our 
knowledge should be filled up. 
The economy of fertilisation in the genus isremarkable. The propulsion 
of the polinia by means of the sensitive antennze was fully explained by 
Darwin, and the method of fertilisation in C. tridentatum was afterwards 
described and illustrated by Criiger, who was able to observe the species in 
Trinidad, where it is common. The visiting insect is described as a large 
humble bee, noisy and quarrelsome, which visits the flowers of both sexes 
for the purpose of gnawing some cellular tissue in the interior of the sac. 
On visiting the male flowers the pollen masses are thrown on the back of 
the insect, and Criiger had often seen them flying about with this peculiar- 
looking ornament on them. On subsequently visiting the female flower the 
pollinia were caught by the upper margin of the stigmatic cavity, and were 
left behind on the retreat of the insect. The function of the sensitive 
antennz in the sections Eucatasetum and Myanthus is thus apparent, but 
these organs are not developed in the more primitive Ecirrhose and 
Pseudocatasetum, so that some other mechanism must be available, which 
it would be interesting to work out. 
The scarcity of female as compared with male flowers is well known, in 
connection with which the following note by Rodway is suggestive: “‘ In 
some species of Catasetum there are male and female flowers, quite distinct 
in appearance the one from the other, and, what is most curious, borne on 
the same plant at different times. It appears as if the Orchid is able to 
