INTRODUCTION. 9 
the lip; sometimes spread apart, giving the blossom the look of 
a wingedinsect. Who knows but nature intended to make the 
resemblance closer and then changed her mind? The blossom 
or blossoms may be borne on a scape, a stalk without normal 
leaves, like that of our Pink Lady’s-Slipper, or on a leafy stem 
like that of the Yellow Lady’s-Slipper; this scape, or stem, 
being sometimes covered with minute down; often ribbed or 
angled. The leaves are parallel veined, like those of the 
Lilies (indeed, as the Lily family follows the Orchis family 
pretty closely in botanical order and there aré obvious points 
of resemblance, it is not strange that some Orchids are mis- 
taken for Lilies), and coming to the roots, we have three or 
four kinds; clusters of fibres, clusters of tubers, branching, 
coral-like substances, and bulbs. Nearly all Orchids, wher- 
ever they.may grow (in England, all but one species), de- 
pend so closely upon insects for their fertilization that the 
failure of a plant to attract the insects that would naturally 
visit it, or to produce the nectar for which they come, would 
work a two-fold mischief: the extinction of the one must be 
followed by the extinction of the other. To sum up, in the 
words of Hermann Muller: “The Orchis family is remarkable 
for the following characters, due to its wide distribution and 
to its enormous number of species: first, for great variety of 
habit and diversity of station; secondly, for its immense variety 
of peculiar and highly-specialized flowers; and thirdly, for the 
unusually large number of seeds produced in one capsule.” * 
Of our North American Orchids, ten species are identical 
with those found in Europe, and several are represented either 
directly or by allied forms in Darwin’s “Fertilization of 
Orchids.” This writer, in his descriptions, and Professor Gray, 
in his observations on American species,t have told their fas- 
cinating stories so clearly that it would not be necessary for 
tt 
* << The Fertilization of Flowers.” 
+ See appended Bibliography. 
