been bold enough to have surmised that the propagation of a species depended on so complex, so apparently artificial, and yet so admirable an arrangement?
I have examined three other genera placed by Lindley in the small sub-family of Catasetidæ, namely, Mormodes, Cycnoches and Cyrtopodium. The latter plant was purchased by me under this name, and bore a flower-stem about four feet in height with yellowish bracts spotted with red; but the flowers presented none of the remarkable peculiarities of the three other genera, with the exception that the anther was hinged to a point projecting from the summit of the column, as in Catasetum.
Mormodes ignea.—To show how difficult it sometimes is to understand the manner in which an Orchid is fertilised, I may mention that I carefully examined twelve flowers,[1] trying various experiments and recording the results, before I could at all make out the meaning and action of the several parts. It was plain that the pollinia were ejected, as in Catasetum, but how each part of the flower played its proper part I could not even conjecture. I had given up the case as hopeless, until summing up my observations, the explanation presently to be given, and subsequently proved by repeated experiments to be correct, suddenly occurred to me.
The flower presents an extraordinary appearance, and its mechanism is even more curious than its appearance (fig. 32). The base of the column is bent backwards, at right angles to the ovarium or footstalk,
- ↑ I must express my cordial thanks to Mr. Rucker, of West Hill, Wandsworth, for having lent me a plant of this Mormodes with two fine spikes, bearing an abundance of flowers, and for having allowed mo to keep the plant for a considerable time.
