from the sides of the upper sepal and of the two upper petals, which enter the wrong ovarian groups, cannot possibly represent any lost but once distinct organs.
We have now finished with the general homologies of the flowers of Orchids. It is interesting to look at one of the magnificent exotic species, or, indeed, at one of our humblest forms, and observe how profoundly it has been modified, as compared with all ordinary flowers,—with its great labellum, formed of one petal and two petaloid stamens,—with its singular pollen-masses, hereafter to be referred to,—with its column formed of seven cohering organs, of which three alone perform their proper function, namely, one anther and two generally confluent stigmas,—with the third stigma modified into the rostellum and incapable of being fertilised,—and with three of the anthers no longer functionally active, but serving either to protect the pollen of the fertile anther, or to strengthen the column, or existing as mere rudiments, or entirely suppressed. What an amount of modification, cohesion, abortion, and change of function do we here see! Yet hidden in that column, with its surrounding petals and sepals, we know that there are fifteen groups of vessels, arranged three within three, in alternate order, which probably have been preserved to the present time from being developed at a very early period of growth, before the shape or existence of any part of the flower is of importance for the well-being of the plant.
Can we feel satisfied by saying that each Orchid was created, exactly as we now see it, on a certain "ideal type;" that the omnipotent Creator, having fixed on one plan for the whole Order, did not depart from this
through the whole of or through portions of either seven or nine organs. The base of the labellum is here as complex an organ as the column of other Orchids.
