those practical parts of the flower that interest us. Beneath its
protection, the column divides into three knobbly excrescences, the
central plain, those on either side of it curling back and down, each
bearing at its extremity a pad, the size of a small pin's head, outlined
distinctly with a brown colour. It is quite impossible to mistake these
things; equally impossible, I hope, to misunderstand my description.
The pads are the male, the active organs.

But the column does not finish here. It trends downward, behind and
below the pads, and widens out, with an exquisitely graceful curve, into
a disc one-quarter of an inch broad. This is the female, the receptive
part; but here we see the peculiarity of orchid structure. For the upper
surface of the disc is not susceptible; it is the under surface which
must be impregnated, though the imagination cannot conceive a mere
accident which would throw those fertilizing pads upon their destined
receptacle. They are loosely attached and adhesive, when separated, to a
degree actually astonishing, as is the disc itself; but if it were
possible to displace them by shaking, they could never fall where they
ought. Some outside impulse is needed to bring the parts together. In
their native home insects perform that service--sometimes. Here we may
take the first implement at hand, a knife, a bit of stick, a pencil. We
remove the pads, which yield at a touch, and cling to the object. We lay
them one by one on the receptive disc, where they seem to melt into the
surface--and the trick is done. Write out your label--_"Cyp. Sanderianum
x Cyp. Godefroyae_, Maynard." Add the date, and leave Nature to her work.

She does not linger. One may almost say that the disc begins to swell
instantly. That part which we term the column is the termination of the
seed-purse, the ovary, which occupies an inch, or two, or three, of the
stalk, behind the flower. In a very few days its thickening becomes
perceptible. The unimpregnated bloom falls off at its appointed date, as
everybody knows; but if fertilized it remains entire, saving the
labellum, until the seed is ripe, perhaps half a year afterwards--but
withered, of course. Very singular and quite inexplicable are the
developments that arise in different genera, or even species, after
fertilization. In the Warscewiczellas, for example, not the seed-purse
only, but the whole column swells. _Phaloenopsis Luddemanniana_ is
specially remarkable. Its exqui