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 exquisite bars and mottlings of rose, brown,
and purple begin to take a greenish hue forthwith. A few days later, the
lip jerks itself off with a sudden movement, as observers declare. Then
the sepals and petals remaining take flesh, thicken and thicken, while
the hues fade and the green encroaches, until, presently, they assume
the likeness of a flower, abnormal in shape but perfect, of dense green
wax.
This Cypripedium of ours will ripen its seed in about twelve months,
more or less. Then the capsule, two inches long and two-thirds of an
inch diameter, will burst. Mr. Maynard will cut it off, open it wide,
and scatter the thousands of seeds therein, perhaps 150,000, over pots
in which orchids are growing. After experiments innumerable, this has
been found the best course. The particles, no bigger than a grain of
dust, begin to swell at once, reach the size of a mustard-seed, and in
five or six weeks--or as many months--they put out a tiny leaf, then a
tiny root, presently another leaf, and in four or five years we may look
for the hybridized flower.
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