Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/490

tical, consisting of a moveable lid on the top of the style, like Dendrobium, t. 10—12; or Malaxis, Engl. Bot. t. 72. The style of the Orchideæ has been called a column, but I think that term now altogether superfluous. It is really a style, and the stigma is a moist shining space, generally concave, and situated, for the most part, in front of the style beneath the anther. In Orchis bifolia, t. 22, and others, it is just above the orifice of the spur. Concerning the nectary of these plants there has been much diversity of opinion. The calcar, spur, in Orchis, and some other genera, is acknowledged to be such, and holds abundance of honey. This spur is judged by Swartz, as well as Linnæus, a decisive generic mark of distinction, and it commonly is so; but some Indian species brought by Dr. Buchanan prove it not to be absolute. The remarkable and often highly ornamented lip, considered by Swartz as the only corolla, for he takes all the other leaves of the flower for a calyx, has, by Linnæus and others, been thought, either a part of the nectary, or, where no