But an orchid, from the amazing cleverness of its operations,
is attractive under any circumstances to whomever understands
it. This earliest member of the family to appear charms the fe-
male bumblebee, to whose anatomy it is especially adapted. The
males, whose faces are hairy where the females’ are bare, and there-


83


‘Magenta to Pink


fore not calculated to retain the sticky pollen masses, are not yet
flying when the showy orchis blooms. Bombus Americanorum,
which can drain the longest spurs, B. separatus, B. terricola, and,
rarely, butterflies as well, have been caught with its pollen masses
attached. The bee alights on the projecting lip, pushes her head
into the mouth of the corolla, and, as she sips the nectar from the
horn of plenty, ruptures by the slight pressure a membrane of the
pouch where two sticky buttons, to which two pollen masses are
attached, lieimbedded. Instantly after contact these adhere to the
round bare spots on her face, the viscid cement hardening before
her head is fairly withdrawn. Now the diverging pollen masses,
that look like antennez, fall from the perpendicular, by remarkable
power of contraction, to a horizontal attitude, that they may be
in the precise position to fertilize the stigma of the next flower
visited—just as if they possessed a reasoning intelligence !
Even after all the pollen has been deposited on the sticky stigmas
of various blossoms, stump-like caudicles to which the two little
sacs were attached have been found still plastered on a long-suffer-
ing bee. But so rich in nectar are the moisture-loving orchids
that, to obtain a draught, the sticky plasters which she must carry
do not seem too dear a price to pay. In this showy orchis the
nectar often rises an eighth of an inch in the tube, and sufficient
pressure to cause a rupture will eject it a foot.
