70 THE ORCHIDS OF NEIV ENGLAND. 
rotation was detected. The throat of the flower is a narrow 
chamber ; and the narrow stigma and the discs lie so low in it 
that fertilization cannot be effected without insect aid, and this 
can be given only by means of a proboscis. We find accord- 
ingly, that a pig’s bristle cannot be thrust down to the bottom 
of the spur and withdrawn without bringing away one of the 
pollen-masses. But the anther-cells open early and the pollen- 
masses are often dislodged as soon as the flower opens. Yet 
from the arrangement of the parts, we think that they can 
never fall over upon their own stigma as they do in the 
allied 
“ Platanthera (flabenaria) hyperborca. Here the lip, spreading 
from the base, leaves a more open throat, the more exposed 
stigma is broad and transverse, the anther-cells are more diver- 
gent, and from the curvature of the flower, more overhanging, 
and the stalks of the pollen-masses very slender and weak. 
Thus disposed, the pollen-masses very commonly fall out of the 
anther-cells while the tip of the lip is still held under the point 
of the upper sepals and petals, or even in the closed buds, and 
when the lip is disengaged and becomes recurved, or even be- 
fore, the pollen-masses are apt to topple over and fall upon the 
broad stigma beneath.” In this respect the plant is much like 
Ophrys opifera in Darwin’s treatise, but A. Ayperborea is also 
fertilized by outside aid. “The packets of pollen are looser 
and the threads that attach them to the stalk weaker than 
usual; while the discs (which are oval and rather small) retain 
for a good while their viscidity, so that a fitting insect on visit- 
ing the open flowers, in which the pollen-masses have already 
fallen over on to the broad stigma underneath, will yet catch 
one or both of the discs upon his proboscis, carry off the pol- 
len-masses (which may be readily detached from the stigma, 
leaving some pollen behind) and apply them in succession to 
the stigmas of other flowers of other individuals, and thus 
effect occasionally the crossing so uniformly effected in most 
