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This is the Ragged Orchid, a near relative of the foregoing, H. psycodes, but far less fortunate in its attributes of beauty, its long scattered spike of greenish-white flowers being so inconspicuous in its sedgy haunt as often to conceal the fact of its frequency. The pollen-pouches approach slightly at the base, directly opposite the nectary, where the two viscid pollen-glands stand on guard.
In H. flava this "tubercle," instead of depending from the throat, grows upward from the lip, and, as we look at the flower directly from the front, completely hides the opening to the nectary, and an insect is compelled to insert its tongue on one side, which direction causes it to pass directly beneath the pollen disc, as in H. lacera, and with the same result.
Not only her character, but her beauty, became another thing under all this largess; one remembered the very Persian rose, in looking at her, and thought of gardens amid whose clouds of rich perfume the nightingales sang all night long; her manner, too, became strangely gracious, and a sweetness lingered after her presence, delicate and fine as the drop of honey in some flower's nectary.
Sea-anemones waved their tentacles as they looked like tempting flowers which invited the tiny fish and crustaceans to inspect their beauties, and at the slightest touch of one of these waving petals fell paralysed, or were drawn into the all-absorbing mouth that took the place of the nectary in a flower.
Shorter-tongued moths would fail to remove the pollen, and also to reach the nectar, and would thus soon learn to realize that they were not welcome. The Angræcum also affords in this long pendent nectary a most lucid illustration of the present workings of natural selection.
It seems also that the flower itself is arranged and made attractive for the purpose of inviting this nuptial visit. I think I have been able to show that the nectary of the plant distils a sugary liquid which attracts the insects and obliges it to aid unconsciously in the work of direct or cross fertilisation. The last method of fertilisation is the more common.
On your hypothesis there must be a moth with a tongue eleven inches long, or this nectary would never have been elaborated."
The opening to the nectary is seen just below the stigmatic surface, the nectary itself being nearly two inches in length. The pollen is in two club-like bodies, each hidden within a fissured pouch on either side of the stigma, and coming to the surface at the base in their opposing sticky discs as shown.
Nature has in many flowers used a wonderful apparatus to guard the nectary, or honey-gland, from insects. In the honey-suckle the petal terminates in a long tube like a cornucopiae, or horn of plenty; and the honey is produced at the bottom of it.
Besides the common species, the second is the cari, Solanum cari, which bears white flowers having a large central nectary like the narcissus. The roots of this species are cylindrical and very sweet, and are usually roasted under the ashes. The Oca, or Oxalis tuberosa, produces five or six tuberosities on each root, three or four inches in length covered by a thin smooth skin.
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