THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 107 
the cup-shaped one of Orchis spectabilis, and may be described 
as a thin, tapering beak or projection, a shelf as it were, over 
the stigma; its tip appearing like a dark dot as you look into 
the flower. On this shelf lie the two pollen-masses, one in 
each cell, composed of “thin and tender plates of granular pol- 
len united by elastic threads” (these plates so brittle that in S. 
Romanzoviana 1 have, on 
out the _ pollen- 
left much of the « 
“in. the. 
middle of ‘the rostellum,” 
drawing 
masses, 
pollen behind). 
to quote from Darwin’s ac- 
count of the kindred British 
species S. autumnalis, “a 
; fj Fic. 34.—SPIRANTHES AUTUMNALIS, or LapiEs’ 
narrow, brown object ( g. TrESSES. (From Darwin.) 
a. Anther. cl. Margin of. clinan- 
34; C) ae be eee bor- 2. Pollen-grains. drum. 
dered and covered by trans- 4: Threads of the pollen- +. Rostellum. 
masses. s. Stigma. 
parent membrane. This 2. Nectar receptacle. 
. : A. Flower with the two lower sepals alone re- 
brown object I will-call the moved. The labellum has its lip fringed. 
B. Mature flower with all the sepals and petals re- 
moved. The position of the labellum (which 
has moved from the rostellum) and of the up- 
per sepals is shown by the dotted lines. 
C. Front view of stigma and of the rostellum with 
its embedded central disc. 
D. Front view of stigma and rostellum after the 
disc has been removed. 
This 
boat, standing vertically up 
boat -formed disc. 
on its stern, is filled with 
thick, milky, extremely ad- 
hesive fluid, which, when 
exposed to the air, turns 
brown, and in about one 
E. Viscid disc removed and greatly magnified, view- 
ed posteriorily, and with the attached elastic 
threads of the pollen-masses; the pollen-grains 
. have been removed from the threads. 
minute sets quite hard. An object is well glued to the boat 
in four or five seconds, and when the cement is dry the attach- 
ment is wonderfully strong. 
“The face of the rostellum next the stigma is slightly fur- 
rowed in a longitudinal line over the middle of the boat, and is 
endowed with a remarkable kind of irritability; for if the fur- 
row be touched very gently with a needle, or if a bristle be laid 
along the furrow, it instantly splits along its whole length, and 
