"Cypripedium" Quotes from Famous Books
... paper, though touching on only subordinate points will run, I fear, to 100 MS. folio pages! The beauty of the adaptation of parts seems to me unparalleled. I should think or guess waxy pollen was most differentiated. In Cypripedium which seems least modified, and a much exterminated group, the grains are single. In ALL OTHERS, as far as I have seen, they are in packets of four; and these packets cohere into many wedge-formed masses in Orchis; into eight, four, and finally two. It seems curious that a flower should exist, ... — The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin |