first entertained, but not published, by Bernard de Jussieu);[1] and he correctly marks the relation both of the stamen and placentæ of the ovarium to the divisions of the perianthium.
In 1711, Curtis, in the Flora Londinensis in his figure and account of Ophrys apifera, correctly delineates and describes the pollen masses, called by him antheræ, the 687 glands at their base inclosed in distinct cuculli or bursiculæ, and the stigma, with the surface of which he represents the masses as coming in contact.
In his second volume, the two lateral adnate lobes of the stigma, and the auriculæ of the column of Orchis mascula, are distinctly shown; and these auriculæ, now generally denominated rudimentary stamina, are also delineated in some other species of Orchis afterwards figured in the same work.
In 1793, Christian Konrad Sprengel[2] asserts that the pollen masses are applied directly to the secreting or viscid surface on the front of the column, in other words to the stigma, and that insects are generally the agents in this operation.
In 1799, J. K. Wachter[3] supports the same opinion, as far as regards the necessity of direct contact of the pollen masses with the female organ; and this observer was the first who succeeded in artificially impregnating an Orchideous plant, by applying the pollen to the stigma of Habenaria bifolia.
In 1799 also, or beginning of 1800, Schkuhr[4] takes the same view of the subject, and states that the pollen masses, which resist the action of common moisture, are readily dissolved by the viscid fluid of the stigma.
In 1800 Swartz,[5] in adopting the same opinion, notices various ways in which the application of the pollen may be effected in the different tribes of this family, repeats the statement of Schkuhr on the solvent power of the stigma, and in Bletia Tankervilliæ describes ducts
