Page:Darwin - The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects (1877).djvu/54

34 In the second lot of O. morio, in the preceding list, we see the injurious effects of the extraordinary cold and wet season of 1860 on the visits of insects, and, consequently, on the fertilisation of this Orchid, very few seed-capsules having been produced.

I have examined spikes of O. pyramidalis in which every single expanded flower had its pollinia removed. The forty-nine lower flowers of a spike from Folkestone (sent me by Sir Charles Lyell) actually produced forty-eight fine seed-capsules; and of the sixty-nine lower flowers in three other spikes, seven alone had failed to produce capsules. These facts show how well moths and butterflies perform their office of marriage-priests.

The third lot of O. pyramidalis in the above list, grew on a steep grassy bank, overhanging the sea near Torquay, and where there were no bushes or other shelter for Lepidoptera; being surprised how few pollinia had been removed, though the spikes were old and very many of the lower flowers withered, I gathered, for comparison, six other spikes from two bushy and sheltered valleys, half a mile on each side of the exposed bank; these spikes were certainly younger, and would probably have had several more of their pollinia removed; but in their present condition we see how much more frequently they had been visited by moths, and consequently fertilised, than those growing on the much exposed bank. The Bee Ophrys and O. pyramidalis grow mingled together in many parts of England; and they did so here, but the Bee Ophrys, instead of being, as usual, the rarer species, was here