412 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 
flower, the scent, and the massing together o£ the blooms point 
towards adaptation to some special insect or insects. My reason for 
including it is to give some account of the method by which it is 
fertilised, and to point out why so few flowers usually are fertilised. 
In the majority of flowers the labellum hangs down loosely in front of 
the column (Fig. 12), and insects can alight on labellum and search 
for nectar, or gnaw the ridges of the labellum without touching the 
anthers or pollinia. But now and then a spike may be found in which 
bhe labellum clasps the column (Fig. 13), and then the only mode of 
access to the column or ridges is by a small chink (^, Fig. 14). Any 
insect putting its head in here presses the anther downwards, so 
that the pollen is protected ; but on withdrawal it lifts the anther 
upwards, and then the pollinia adhere to the intruder and are carried 
away. Now r , it is significant that, when a spike of flowers is discovered 
with the labellum clasping the column in this way, almost all the pollen 
masses will be found to be removed. The fact of so few flowers being 
found in this state accounts for the rarity of seed capsules on the 
plants. Flow rarely they do produce seed Mr. Fitzgerald has shown 
in the place referred to. In one instance 7 capsules to 4,200 flowers, 
and in the other 9 to 9,000. A remarkable thing about the rock-lily — 
and indeed many other Australian plants — is the fact that some years 
all the plants flower very freely, while in other years they do not 
flower at all, or very few r do so. Mr. Fitzgerald gives 1889 as a } r ear 
in which there were many flowers. This year (1893) I think every 
plant in Illawarra must have flowered. A clump of plants, which had 
no flowers during the previous two years, in October last had 456 
spikes of bloom, many spikes having 100 or more flowers. The 
average would probably be 80 flowers to a spike, or 36,480 flowers. 
In all this large number only 152 seed capsules were found, and it is 
noteworthy that there were no column-clasping labella among all 
these. 
I omitted, in speaking of the flowers which have the labellum 
closed round the column, to say that in a spike I took in this condition 
— 80 flowers in all — 78 had pollinia removed, 20 had pollen on stigma, 
which had swelled up as it does when fertilised, and the ovulary had 
swelled also, while 36 more had pollen on stigma, and 24 had stigma 
unfertilised. In many of these the ridges on the labellum were 
gnawed away. 
Lyperanthus Burnett i, F. v. M. — This orchid was collected at 
National Park by Mr. L. Stephenson, and at Mount Kembla by myself, 
Mr. E. Betche informs me that Mr. Stephenson’s specimens were 
yellowish inside ; mine were pure wdiite. The plant is, I believe, self- 
fertilised, as some I isolated from insects developed seeds for every 
flower. It closes its flowers at night, and indeed it is only on the 
brightest and hottest clays, and then only for a short time, that it opens 
them fully. 
Caladenia. — Mr. Fitzgerald (6) is of opinion that the plants of 
this genus are fertilised by rather large insects being carried against 
the column by the spring of the labellum, and he witnessed the 
process in Caladenia alba , a housefly being jerked against the column, 
and in its struggles to escape it withdrew the pollinia. For several 
reasons I am inclined to think that flies are the agents, in some species 
at least. I once collected Caladenia cucullata near Guntawang. and 
