448 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Veitch for his invaluable observations. Mr. Veitch followed out 

 the inner processes from pollination to fertilisation in Cattleya 

 Mossise pollinated with its own pollen. The pollen masses were 

 applied in the usual way. Two days afterwards the flower faded 

 and the pollen masses began to break up into groups of grains 

 and became thoroughly mixed up with the sticky fluid of the 

 stigma, and from some of the grains short tubes were already 

 pushed out. After six days the pollen tubes had largely in- 

 creased in numbers, and the longest had reached the base of 

 the column, having worked their way down the duct leading 

 through the middle of the column from the stigma to the seed- 

 chamber or ovary. During this time a wonderful change had 

 taken place in the ovary, or seed-pod. Before pollination it was 

 circular in shape ; fourteen days later it was triangular and 

 swollen ; and at the end of thirty days its walls were still more 

 swollen, and the ovules, the future seeds, were gradually develop- 

 ing into shape and form, though there were as yet no signs of 

 fertilisation. At the end of thirty days the pollen tubes had 

 entered the ovary, and were pushing down along its walls by the 

 side of the placentas which bore the ovules. After fifty-five days 

 the pollen tubes had reached the bottom of the ovary, and were 

 all among the ovules in countless numbers, but no signs of 

 fertilisation could be traced. Seventy-five days after pollination 

 Mr. Veitch found the tips of the pollen tubes in contact with the 

 opening leading into the ovule (micropyle), and at this time 

 actual fertilisation began to take place, changing the ovules into 

 seeds. 



So far back as 1863 Dr. Hildebrandt made observations in 

 the Botanic Gardens at Bonn on the processes of fertilisation in 

 Orchids, somewhat similar to Mr. Veitch, but in different genera. 

 (Mohl and Schlectendal, Botanische Zeitung, 1863, Nos. 44 

 and 45.) Dr. Hildebrandt found that the period between pollina- 

 tion and fertilisation varied considerably in different Orchids : the 

 period in Dendrobium nobile he found to be about 120 days, 

 Phaius grandifolius sixty days, Cypripedium insigne 120 days, 

 while in hardy terrestrial Orchids, Listera ovata, Neottia nidus- 

 avis, and Orchis pyramidalis the period was but eight to nine 

 days, and Gymnadenia conopsea, Orchis morio, and 0. maculata 

 about fourteen days. As far as I know, no one has carried actual 

 observations in the fertilisation of Orchids beyond this stage, 



