orchid must perish from its inability to set fertile seed, no
wonder it woos its benefactors with a showy mass of color,
charming fringes, sweet perfume, and copious draughts of nectar,
and makes their visits of the utmost value to itself by the
ingenious mechanism described above. Here is no waste of pollen;
that is snugly packed in little bundles, ready to be carried off,
but placed where they cannot come in contact with the adjoining
stigma, since every orchid, almost without exception, refuses to
be deteriorated through self-fertilization.

>From New Jersey and Illinois southward, particularly in
mountainous regions, if not among the mountains themselves, the
FRINGELESS PURPLE ORCHIS (H. perarnoena) may be found blooming in
moist meadows through July and August. Moisture, from which to
manufacture the nectar that orchids rely upon so largely to
entice insects to work for them, is naturally a prime necessity;
yet Sprengel attempted to prove that many orchids are gaudy shams
and produce no nectar, but exist by an organized system of
deception. "Scheinsaftblumen" he called them. From the number of
butterflies seen hovering about this fringeless orchis and its
more attractive kin, it is small wonder their nectaries are soon
exhausted and they are accused of being gay deceivers. Sprengel's
much-quoted theory would credit moths, butterflies, and even the
highly intelligent bees with scant sense; but Darwin, who
thoroughly tested it, forever exonerated these insects from
imputed stupidity and the flowers from gross dishonesty. He found
that many European orchids secrete their nectar between the outer
and inner walls of the tube, which a bumblebee can easily pierce,
but where Sprengel never thought to look for it. The large lip of
this orchis is not fringed, but has a fine picotee edge. The