i 
THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 47 
so that it has to back out, and in doing so, raise-the lid 
of the pollen case. When Darwin saw the flower of the 
Madagascar orchid, Angraecum sesquipedale, with its nec- 
tary tube eleven inches in length, he declared that a moth 
with a proboscis of corresponding length must exist, and 
in due course such a one was discovered. 
The little terrestrial orchids we gather in the bush ~ 
will generally ripen their seed in a few weeks. The fine 
"varieties grown in green-houses take from four to twelve 
months. The seed is very minute, even in large orchids— - 
just a fine dust. When magnified, the appearance is not 
unlike that of small pods containing single peas. In the 
larger forms, when the seed-husk is magnified to an ap- 
parent length of half an inch, the seed itself will appear — 
_about the size of a pinhead. 
Owing to non-fertilisation, much of the contents of 
the seed vessels frequently consists of seedless husks or 
shells. 
There are other curious points about orchids besides 
the mode of fertilisation. There is, for instance, the pro-. 
duction of an enormous number of seeds, and the very 
small proportion of these that germinate, probably not one 
in a million, in a state of nature. 
The small Terrestrial Orchids may have nearly — all 
their flowers fertilised; the larger varieties will have very 
few, and of the few, only a small proportion of pods reach 
ripeness. Very seldom is a pod approaching ripeness seen 
on our native rock-lily, Dendrobium speciosum. I don’t 
think I have seen half a dozen, and those were in my 
own gardens, where they are relatively protected. A pod 
on some of the Vandas and some of the Cantley as: will con-. 
tain a tablespoonful of seed. — 
If the fertile seed of orchids were all to grow, few 
though the pods are, in a few years there would not be 
room on the earth for other plants. 
Most of the ladies know the Lady Slipper orchids 
 (Cyprepedium), of which there are a large number of. 
varieties. It has never been recorded that a seed-pod has 
been found on a plant in a state of nature.. Yet some ~ 
must have seeded, as thé same variety is found in widely- 
apart districts. Tt was for a plant of this order that it 
was said £1,000 would be given. A plant had been found 
. 
