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I here found a beautiful orchideous plant, with the habit of Bletia tankervilliae, flowering in the same manner, with flower-stems about three feet high, and from twelve to twenty flowers on each stem. The sepals were much larger than those of Bletia, and of a rich purple colour; the column yellow, with a spur at the base of the flower about three-fourths of an inch long.
Here, on the mountain slopes, Mr. Wallace found Bletia Sherrattiana, the white form, very rare; another terrestrial orchid, unnamed and, as is thought, unknown, which sends up a branching spike two feet to three feet high, bearing ten to twelve flowers, of rich purple hue, in shape like a Sobralia, three and four inches across; and yet another of the same family, growing on the rocks, and "looking like masses of snow on the hill-side."
But so little importance seems to be attached to it that the appearance is not always referred to in the explanations of the figures in which it is represented. Mr. Bauer, however, who has also figured it in the utriculi of the stigma of Bletia Tankervilliae has more particularly noticed it, and seems to consider it as only visible after impregnation."
"I may here remark that I am acquainted with one case of apparent exception to the nucleus being solitary in each utriculus or cell namely, in Bletia Tankervilliae.
Bauer has represented the tissue of the stigma, in the species of Bletia, both before and, as he believes, after impregnation; and in the latter state the utriculi are marked with from one to three areolae of similar appearance. "The nucleus may even be supposed to exist in the pollen of this family.
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