My Studio Neighbors

A single blossom of the species is shown in Fig. 5, the parts indexed. 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. Many of the group Habenaria or Platanthera, to which this flower belongs, are similarly planned. But mark the peculiarly logical association of the parts here exhibited. The nectary implies a welcome to a tongue two inches long, and will reward none other. This clearly shuts out the bees, butterflies, and smaller moths. What insect, then, is here implied? The sphinx-moth again, one of the lesser of the group. A larger individual might sip the nectar, it is true, but its longer tongue would reach the base of the tube without effecting the slightest contact with the pollen, which is of course the desideratum here embodied, and which has reference to a tongue corresponding to the length of the nectary. There are many of these smaller sphinxes. Let us suppose one to be hovering at the blossom's throat. Its slender capillary tongue enters the opening.