My Studio Neighbors

The diagrams (Fig. 4) sufficiently illustrate the efficacy of the beautiful plan involved. At A the bee is seen sipping the nectar. His forward movement thus far to this point has only seemed to press the edge of the anther inward, and thus keep it even more effectually closed. As the bee retires (B), the backward motion opens the lid, and the sticky pollen is thus brought against the insect's back, where it adheres in a solid mass. He now flies to the next Arethusa blossom, enters it as before, and in retiring slides his back against the receptive viscid stigma, which retains a portion of the pollen, and thus effects the cross-fertilization (C). Professor Gray surmised that the pollen was withdrawn on the insect's head, and it might be so withdrawn, but in other allied orchids of the tribe Arethusae, however, in which the structure is very similar, the pollen is deposited on the thorax, and such is probably the fact in this species. In either case cross-fertilization would be effected. Nothing else is possible in the flower, and whether it is Bombus or not that effects it, the method is sufficiently evident. Having thus had one initiation into this most enticing realm of riddles, each successive orchid whose structure we examine from this stand-point becomes a most interesting, perhaps a fresh, problem, whose assumed solution may often be verified by studying the insect in its haunts. Darwin thus foretold the precise manner of the cross-fertilization of Habenaria mascula, and also the insect agent, simply by the structural prophecy of the flower itself.