72 
NAT. ORDER.— ORCHIDE^. 
plant is examined, it will be found to consist oi a fleshy body, sta- 
tioned opposite the labellum, bearing a soHtary anther at its apex, 
and having in front a viscid cavity, upon the upper edge of which 
there is often a slight callosity. This cavity is the stigma, and the 
callosity is the point through which the fertilizating matter of the 
pollen passes into the tissue communicating with the ovules. 
He nee, such a plant would appear to be monandrous. 
Plants of the order Orchidege are remarkable for the bizarre 
figure of their multiform flower, which sometimes represents an 
insect, sometimes a helmet with the visor up, and sometimes a 
grinning monkey : so various are these forms, so numerous their 
colors, and so complicated their combinations, that there is 
scarcely a common reptile or insect to which some of them have 
not been likened. They all, however, will be found to consist of 
three outer pieces belonging to the calyx, and three inner belong- 
ing to the corolla ; and all departures from this number, six, de- 
pends upon the cohesion of contiguous parts, with the solitary 
exception of Monomeria, in which the lateral petals are entirely 
abortive. In nearly the whole order, the odd petal, called the 
labellum, rises from the base of the column, and is opposite it. 
The pollen is not less curious : now w^e have it in separate grains, 
as in other plants, but cohering to a meshwork of cellular tissue, 
which is collected into a sort of central elastic strap ; the gran- 
ules cohere in small, angular, indefinite masses, and the central 
elastic strap becomes more apparent, and has a glandular extrem- 
ity, v/hich is often reclined in a peculiar pouch, especially destined 
for its protection ; again, the pollen combines into larger masses, 
which are definite in number, and attached to another modification 
of the elastic strap ; and finally, a complete union of the pollen 
takes place, in solid waxy masses, without any distinct trace of 
this central elastic tissue. 
Such is a part of the singularities of Orchideous plants, and 
upon these the distinctions of their tribes and genera are naturally 
