From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[4 or 5] June 1860
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 9 June 1860, p. 528
Summary:
Wants to hear from readers about the way in which the bee-orchid (Ophrys apifera) is fertilised. He has always found it to be self-fertilised but greatly doubts that the flowers of any plant are fertilised for generations by their own pollen. The bee-orchid has sticky glands, which would make it adapted for fertilisation by insects; this makes him want to hear what happens to its pollen-masses in places he has not observed.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project