Page:Darwin - The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilized by insects (1877).djvu/69

. II. ciently, the following cases show. During several years before 1858 I occasionally examined some flowers, and found that only thirteen out of 102 had one or both pollinia removed. Although at the time I recorded in my notes that most of the flowers were partly withered, I now think that I must have included many young flowers, which might perhaps have been subsequently visited; so I prefer trusting to the following observations.

We here see that, out of 207 flowers examined, not half had been visited by insects. Of the eighty-eight flowers visited, thirty-one had only one pollinium removed. As the visits of insects are indispensable for the fertilisation of this Orchid, it is surprising (as in the case of Orchis fusca) that the flowers have not been rendered more attractive to insects. The number of seed-capsules produced is proportionably even less than the number of flowers visited by insects. The year 1861 was extraordinarily favourable to this species in this part of Kent, and I never saw such numbers in flower; accordingly I marked eleven plants, which bore forty-nine flowers, but these produced only seven capsules. Two of the plants each bore two capsules, and three other plants each bore one, so that no less than six plants did not produce a single capsule! What are we to conclude from these facts? Are the conditions of life unfavourable to this species, though during the year just alluded to it was so numerous in some places as to deserve to be called quite common? Could the plant nourish more seed; and would it be of any advantage to it to produce more seed? Why does it produce so many flowers, if it already produces a sufficiency of seeds? Something seems to be out of order in its mechanism or in its conditions. We shall presently see that Ophrys apifera or the Bee Ophrys