inconspicuous greenish-yellow flowers, more attractive to the eye of the
structural botanist than to the aesthete. It blooms in moist places, as
most orchids do, since water with which to manufacture nectar enough to
fill their deep spurs is a prime necessity. Orchids have arrived at that
pinnacle of achievement that it is impossible for them to fertilize
themselves. More than that, some are absolutely sterile to their own
pollen when it is applied to their stigmas artificially! With insect
aid, however, a single plant has produced more than 1,000,700 seeds. No
wonder, then, that as a family, they have adopted the most marvellous
blandishments and mechanism in the whole floral kingdom to secure the
visits of that special insect to which each is adapted, and, having
secured him, to compel him unwittingly to do their bidding. In the
steaming tropical jungles, where vegetation is luxuriant to the point of
suffocation, and where insect life swarms in myriads undreamed of here,
we can see the best of reasons for orchids mounting into trees and
living on air to escape strangulation on the ground, and for donning
larger and more gorgeous apparel to attract attention in the fierce
competition for insect trade waged about them. Here, where the struggle
for survival is incomparably easier, we have terrestrial orchids, small,
and quietly clad, for the most part.


Calopogon; Grass Pink

_Calopogon pulchellus (Limodorum tuberosum)_

_Flowers_--Purplish pink, 1 in. long, 3 to 15 around a long, loose
spike. Sepals and petals similar, oval, acute; the lip on upper side of
flower is broad at the summit, tapering into a claw, flexible as if
hinged, densely bearded on its face with white, yellow, and magenta