Fertilisation of the Bee Orchis

Abstract

MR. DARWIN, in his “Fertilisation of Orchids,” states his belief that the Bee Orchis presents a physiological difference from all other British orchids, and is habitually self-fertilised. I had, yesterday, an opportunity of observing a number of these plants in one of its abundant localities in Surrey, and at a time when fertilisation must have been completed. In every plant almost all the capsules were considerably swollen, and were loaded with apparently fertilised ovules. In most of the withered flowers, the remains of the pollinia were still visible in the position described by Mr. Darwin, hanging down before the entrance to the nectary, in immediate proximity to the stigma, and rendering it almost impossible to believe that the flower had ever been entered by any insect of considerable size, which must inevitably have carried away the pollinia with it. The fact that the Bee Orchis, the most “imitative” of all our native plants, is never visited by insects, is a very suggestive one. If, as might well have been assumed, the object of the “mimicry” is the attraction of bees, the device appears to have signally failed.