337 
rivalled for the perfection of his microscopical analyses, the beauty of his draw- 
ings, and the admirable skill with which he follows Nature in her most secret 
workings ; and let me add, which is a still rarer quality, the generous disinte- 
restedness with which he communicates to his friends the result of his patient 
and silent labours. I have sketches before me by Mr. Bauer, executed from 
1794 to 1807, in which the most material part of what has been published 
since that period is shewn in the most distinct and satisfactory manner. I am 
happy to have been the humble means of giving some of these extraordinary 
productions of the pencil to the world, in the Illustrations of the Genera and 
Species of Orchideous Plants, of which 3 parts in 4to. with 30 plates have ap- 
peared.* 
If the sexual apparatus of an Orchideous plant is examined, it will be found 
to consist of a fleshy body stationed opposite the lip, bearing a solitary 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 fertilising matter of the pollen passes into the tissue 
communicating with the ovules. Hence such a plant woiild appear to be mo- 
nandrous ; it will be seen, however, in Scitaminese and Marantacese, the only 
other monandrous orders of Monocotyledons, that, while only one perfect 
stamen is developed, two others exist in a rudimentary state ; so that the ter- 
nary number prevalent in Monocotyledons is not departed from. So it is in 
Orchidacese : the column does not consist of a single filament cohering with a 
style, but of three filaments firmly grown together, the central of which is an- 
theriferous, and the lateral sterile. This is proved by the frequent presence of cal- 
losities, or processes in the place of the sterile stamens ; by imperfectly- 
formed anthers occasionally appearing at the side of the perfect one ; and, 
if any further evidence were wanted, by monsters, in which a regular 
structure is exchanged for the ordinary irregular one. Such an instance in 
Orchis latifolia is described by Achille Richard, in the Memoires de la Soc. 
d'Hist. Nat. of Paris, in which the flowers were perfectly triandrous, with no 
trace of irregularity in any part of the floral envelopes. 
The opinion above mentioned concerning the manner in which fertiliza- 
tion is accomplished has been objected to by Brown and Brongniart, who 
beheve that in these as in other plants this effect is produced by the emission of 
pollen tubes, produced by pollen fallen upon the stigma. See my Introduction to 
Botany, 2d edition, p. 284, for this theory and for my objections to it. 
Orchidacese 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 colours, and so complicated their combinations, that there is scarcely a 
common reptile or insect to which some of them have not been likened. 
* It was a subject of sorrow to me to find, shortly after the appearance of the first 
edition of the present work, that some observations, substantially the same as these, had 
given rise to the pretence, on the part of a northern critic, that what was intended as a mere 
act of justice to the little known labours of Mr. Bauer, was in fact to be understood as a 
hint, that Dr. Brown had been indebted to Mr. Bauer for information of which he had 
profited without acknowledgement. I know nothing of the person, or the motives of the 
writer from whom this calumny did emanate; but this I know, that no person of common 
sense, or common feeling, would have thought of casting such an imputation upon the 
man to whom Botany owes more in this country than to any individual since the time of 
Ray. Nevertheless there were certain well-meaning persons who thought I ought to have 
noticed these aspersions, and who have quarrelled with me (God save the mark !) because I 
was of another opinion. Pace tantorum virorum I think myself a better judge than they 
of what concerns mine own honour, and 1 am not likely to take them into my counsels as 
to what it is, or is not, befitting me to do. 
Z 
