Page:Darwin - The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects (1877).djvu/125

. IV. removed, and the fork-shaped supporting sides of the rostellum were partially withered. Mr. R. B. Thomson informs me that in the north of Scotland he saw many humble-bees (Bombus pratorum) visiting the flowers with pollen-masses attached to their proboscides. This species grows also in the United States; and Professor Asa Gray confirms my account of its structure and manner of fertilisation, which is likewise applicable to another and very distinct species, namely, Goodyera pubescens.

Goodyera is an interesting connecting link between several very distinct forms. In no other member of the Neotteæ observed by me is there so near an approach to the formation of a true caudicle; and it is curious that in this genus alone the pollen-grains cohere in large packets, as in the Ophreæ. If the nascent caudicles had been attached to the lower ends of the pollinia, and they are attached a little beneath their summits, the pollinia would have been almost identical with those of a true Orchis. In the rostellum being supported by sloping sides, which wither when the viscid disc is removed,—in the existence of a membranous cup or clinandrum between the stigma