XXXIII.— THE BEE ORCHIS. 
Ophrys apifera Hudson. 
I F in the cases of some other Orchids the resemblances to which they owe their 
names are but slight, the Bee Orchis strikes even the most casual observer by 
the remarkable closeness with which it mimicks the insect. 
“ Here,” says Alphonse Karr, “ is a little plant springing up in the grass to a height of five or six inches : its stalk 
ends in a pink flower ; but what insect is that, with its head buried in the blossom, feasting apparently with such 
perseverance that it is motionless ? Don’t be afraid of frightening it, it won’t fly away ; for tdat insect is a flower : it 
is but the under part of these three lilac petals which surround it. The form, the colour, everything is perfectly 
imitated. You would not dare to touch it for fear of being stung. This flower which we may fancy we hear 
buzz, and upon which bees will not light believing it pre-occupied, this is the Bee Orchis.” 
Iii Isaac Disraeli’s “ Curiosities of Literature ” is the following amusing instance 
of the danger of a little learning. 
“ Nature.” he says, “ has formed a bee, apparently feeding in the breast of the flower, with so much exactness, that 
it is impossible at a very small distance to distinguish the imposition. Langhorne elegantly notices its appearance : — 
‘ See on that flow’ret’s velvet breast, 
How close the busy vagrant lies ! 
H is thin-wrought plume, his downy breast, 
The ambrosial gold that swells his thighs. 
Perhaps his fragrant load may bind 
His limbs ; — we’ll set the captive free — 
I sought the living bee to find, 
And found the picture of a bee/ 
“The late Mr. Jackson, of Exeter, wrote to me on the subject : — ‘This orchis is common near our sea coasts ; but 
instead of being exactly like a bee, it is not like it at all. It has a general resemblance to a fly, and by the help of 
the imagination may be supposed to be a fly pitched upon the flower. . . . An ingenious botanist, a stranger to me, 
after reading this article, was so kind as to send me specimens of the fly orchis, Ophrys muscifera , and of the bee orchis, 
Ophrys apifera. Their resemblance to these insects when in full flower is the most perfect conceivable ; they are 
distinct plants/ The poetical eye of Langhorne was equally correct and fanciful ; and that too of Jackson, who differed 
so positively. Many controversies have been carried on from a want of a little more knowledge 5 both parties prove to 
be right.” 
It is not surprising that the popular names of the plant all refer to this 
resemblance. They include “ Humble-bee ” and “ Dumble-dor.” The origin of 
its generic name Ophrys , from the Greek oppv 5, ophrus , an eyebrow, is not so simple. 
Pliny asserts that some plant to which the name was applied was used as a hair-dye ; 
but Sir Joseph Hooker suggests that the name has reference to the curved markings 
on the labellum. 
Whilst in most Orchids we find elaborate contrivances to secure cross-pollination 
by insects, the Bee Orchis is, as Robert Brown first pointed out, a remarkable 
exception in being self-pollinating ; so that there may be some foundation for his 
suggestion that its resemblance to a bee serves to warn off other bees from visiting 
it. It has, it is true, conspicuous blossoms and its pollen is united, as in so many 
other Orchids, into two club-shaped pollinia, as if to facilitate its being carried 
away, as it is in those other cases, on the head or proboscis of an insect, and so to 
pollinate another flower. Darwin, however — who by his work “ On the various 
contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are fertilised by insects,” 
