[page] 72

Fertilisation of British Orchids by Insect Agency.

Referring to your number for June 9, 1860, p. 528, Mr Darwin asks for information on this point from persons residing in an Orchis district. It was not as a person answering that description that I venture reply to his inquiries, because with the exception O. morio, rarely O. mascula, and most rarely O. viridis and Listera ovata, we have none of the British Orchids growing near Ely.

In the spring of 1860 I met by accident a poor fellow in a street near Hungerford market, who for the important sum of 6d, sold me 15 roots of the Fly Orchis (Ophrys muscifera), which he had collected near Guildford, Surrey.

I planted them in my garden, where they all flowered vigorously, bearing from seven to 12 flowers each. Not one of the seed vessels swelled, and long after the flowers had withered I narrowly inspected every one of them, and found the pollen masses still in their pouches, waxy and moist, where one would have expected to find them shrivelled like the flowers.

I bought at the same time several roots of the Butterfly Orchis, and one of O. maculata. The seed vessels of the Butterfly Orchis in most instances swelled off, and I think every one upon the O. maculata was fertilised. I examined the latter frequently and found the pollen masses had been dislodged. If it had not been for the O. maculata growing with the rest, I might have referred the condition of the Fly Orchids to the absence of insects on account of the rainy weather, but as they all grew together and flowered at the same time (or nearly so), insects could as well get at the Flies as at the others.

Wm. Marshall, Ely.