6 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
brilliant and even varied colors, when it serves, in part at 
least, as a convenient platform or landing place for a visiting 
insect on the wing. Sometimes this same sepal is projected 
backwards, as in the genus Habcnaria, into a more or less 
elongated spur or nectary. This contains the fluid sought 
by insects and so essential to the process of cross-pollina- 
The perianth or floral envelope, really the calyx and 
corolla fused together, coheres with the one-celled ovar}', in 
which the numerous dust-like ovules are situated on the 
walls. The stamens, one or more, rarely two, in number, 
are consolidated with the style and stigma, forming the 
column. The pollen is not powdery, as in most other plants, 
but agglutinated, as in milk weeds, into pear-shaped bodies 
(pollinia), furnished at base with a stalk and an adhesive 
disk. 
All the family show extraordinary processes for cross- 
pollination. This differentiation, for the accomplishment of 
special important ends, places them, in connection with the 
marked adnation and coalescence of parts, at the head of 
monocotyledons, or near it. They form a very large family, 
widely distributed, but of little direct economic importance. 
Vanilla is about the sole plant of the group that is made use 
of by man. It must be borne in mind, however, that, owing 
to the extreme beauty or singularity of the flowers, they are 
widely sought, and command extravagant prices. i\mong 
the most lovely of created objects, it suffices them to be such, 
so, with compositae, they have been placed among the "royal 
families" that neither toil nor spin. While the compositae 
are royal mendicants often, there is no orchid that is not 
evidently regal : even the common green ones wear a high. 
Of our orchids, the lady's slippers are perhaps the most 
familiar. The showy lady's slipper (Cypripedium specta- 
