C15r

127.

Chapter II

surface of the disc. The mechanism of this movement will be hereafter described in the last chapter. The elastic threads by which the packets of pollen are bound together are unusually weak, as is likewise the case with the two following species of Habenaria: this was well shown by the state of the specimens which had been kept in spirits of wine. This weakness apparently stands in relation to the viscid matter of the discs not setting hard and dry as in Orchis; so that a moth with a pollinium attached to its proboscis might be enabled to visit several flowers and not have the whole pollinium torn dragged off by the first stigma which was