Copy 2, Volume 4

The English flora / By Sir James Edward Smith.

  • Smith, James Edward, 1759-1828.
Date:
1824-1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The English flora / By Sir James Edward Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    spur, rarely 2, various in length and acuteness, lodging the honey, which is otherwise produced by the smooth, furrowed, crested, or bearded, disk. The nectary there- fore strictly answers to the Linneean definition, “as a part of the corolla,” and supplies the place of a third petal. In some foreign Orchidee it bears a stalked appendage. Stamens gynandrous, partially imperfect. Zvlaments 3, united to the style, or column, above the germen, within the uppermost calyx-leaf, opposite to the lip; the 2 la- teral ones almost always abortive, and hardly discerni- ble; though these alone are perfect in Cypripedium, where the third, or uppermost, is wanting. Anther, in Gynandria Monandria, solitary, from the intermediate filament, of 2 cells, which are either widely separated, each cell at one side of the column ; or brought together into a simple vertical anther, either parallel to the stigma, and lying over it, fixed, and permanent; or terminating the column in the form of a lid, which is moveable, at- tached by a sort of hinge at the back, and finally deci- duous ; each of its two cells being divided internally, by one, seltlom three, longitudinal partitions. Pollen either of simple grains, or of fourfold globules, in masses fit- ting the cells. ‘These masses, in the fixed divided an- ther, rarely in the terminal moveable one, or lid, consist of many angular portions, cohering by elastic gluten , in the parallel anther, rarely in the terminal one, they are rather powdery, forming plates of easily separable gra- nulations; in the lid-shaped anther they are usually waxy, homogeneous and smooth. When the cells open, the discharged pollen-masses stick by a taper base, or elastic thread, to the stigma, or to some adjoining glan- dular bodies above it, or to any thing else in their way. Germen altogether inferior, either roundish, obovate, ‘or oblong, often twisted, having 3 principal ribs or angles, each opposite to a calyx-leaf. Style, technically called in this tribe a column, stout, more or less united with the Juaments, and bearing the anther, or anthers; sometimes very short and thick. S¢igma on the upper part of the style in front, facing the lip, either a mere concave moist depression, or protuberant, and often quadrangular ; it is accompanied at the summit or sides by one or two glands, serving to attach the discharged pollen, and these are either naked, or contained in a membranous pouch, or pouches.