Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
136
My Studio Neighbors
·
W. Hamilton Gibson
97
From
the
simplest
and
regular
types
of
flowers,
as
in
the
buttercup,
we
pass
on
to
more
and
more
involved
and
unsymmetrical
forms,
as
the
columbine,
monk's-hood,
larkspur,
aristolochia,
and
thus
finally
to
the
most
highly
specialized
or
involved
forms
of
all,
as
seen
in
the
orchid--the
multifarious,
multiversant
orchid;
the
beautiful
orchid;
the
ugly
orchid;
the
fragrant
orchid;
the
fetid
orchid;
the
graceful,
homely,
grotesque,
uncanny,
mimetic,
and,
until
the
year
1859,
the
absolutely
non-committal
and
inexplicable
flower;
the
blossom
which
had
waited
through
the
ages
for
Darwin,
its
chosen
interpreter,
ere
she
yielded
her
secret
to
humanity.
And
what
is
an
orchid?
How
are
we
to
know
that
this
blossom
which
we
plucked
is
an
orchid?
The
average
reader
will
exclaim,
"Because
it
is
an
air-plant"--the
essential
requisite,
it
would
seem,
in
the
popular
mind.
Of
over
3000
known
species
of
orchids,
it
is
true
a
great
majority
are
air-plants,
or
epiphytes--growing
upon
trees
and
other
plants,
obtaining
their
sustenance
from
the
air,
and
not
truly
parasitic;
but
of
the
fifty-odd
native
species
of
the
northeastern
United
States,
not
one
is
of
this
character,
all
growing
in
the
ground,
like
other
plants.
It
is
only
by
the
botanical
structure
of
the
flowers
that
the
orchid
may
be
readily
distinguished,
the
epiphytic
character
being
of
little
significance
botanically.
A
brief
glance
at
this
structural
peculiarity
may
properly
precede
our
more
elaborate
consideration
of
a
few
species
of
these
remarkable
flowers.
The
orchids
are
usually
very
irregular,
and
six-parted.
The
ovary
is
one-celled,
and
becomes
a
pod
containing
an
enormous
yield
of
minute,
almost
spore-like,
seeds
(Fig.
3)
in
some
species,
as
in
the
vanilla
pod,
to
the
number
of
a
million,
and
in
one
species
of
the
maxillaria,
as
has
been
carefully
computed,
1,750,000.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
