About Orchids | |
Auhtor: Frederick Boyle | |
| Language: english Published: 1893 Genres:essays, natureDownloads: 71 eBook size: 177Kb Review by Chandler, March 2007 Rating: (*****) Copyright: Public Domain in the U.S. Please check the copyright status in your country. | |
Summary of the Book 'About Orchids':
Fertilisation of Orchids is a book by Charles Darwin published on 15 May 1862 under the full explanatory title On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects and on the good effects of intercrossing. Darwins previous book On the Origin of Species had briefly mentioned evolutionary interactions between insects and the plants they fertilised and this new idea was explored in detail. Field studies and practical scientific investigations that were initially a recreation for Darwin a relief from the drudgery of writing developed into enjoyable and challenging experiments. Aided in his work by his family friends and a wide circle of correspondents across Britain and worldwide Darwin tapped into a contemporary vogue for growing exotic orchids. The book was his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection and explained how complex ecological relationships resulted in the coevolution of orchids and insects. The view has been expressed that the book led directly or indirectly to all modern work on coevolution and the evolution of extreme specialisation. It influenced botanists and revived interest in the neglected idea that insects played a part in pollinating flowers. It opened up the new study areas of pollination research and reproductive ecology directly related to Darwins ideas on evolution and supported his view that natural selection led to a variety of forms through the important benefits achieved by cross-fertilisation. Although the general public showed less interest and sales of the book were low it established Darwin as a leading botanist. Orchids was the first in a series of books on his innovative investigations into plants. The book describes how the relationship between insects and plants resulted in the beautiful and complex forms which natural theology attributed to a grand designer. By showing how practical adaptations develop from cumulative minor variations of parts of the flowers to suit new purposes Darwin countered the prevailing view that beautiful organisms were the handiwork of a Creator. Darwins painstaking observations experiments and detailed dissection of the flowers explained previously unknown features such as the puzzle of Catasetum which had been thought to have three completely different species of flowers on the same plant and produced testable predictions. His proposal that the long nectary of Angraecum sesquipedale meant that there must be a moth with an equally long proboscis was controversial at the time but was confirmed in 1903 when Xanthopan morgani praedicta was found in Madagascar.
Excerpts from the Book 'About Orchids':
... MY GARDENING 1. AN ORCHID SALE 24. ORCHIDS 42. COOL ORCHIDS 60. WARM ORCHIDS 103. HOT ORCHIDS 138. THE LOST ORCHID 173. AN ...
... in like case. Looking over the trade list of a man who manufactures orchid-pots one day, I observed, Sea-sand for Garden Walks, and the preoccupation ...
... but New Guinea is a perilous land to explore. Only last week we heard that Mr. White, of Winchmore Hill, has perished in the search forDendrobium ph. ...
... with many spikes an Oncidium, bearing a head of golden flowers four feet across. Giants dwelt in our greenhouses then. So the want of enthusiasts ...
... authorities at Kew determined to build a special house for the genus, provided with every comfort which experience or scientific knowledge could suggest. ...
... whether Mary followed the instructions if given whether those confounded patent ventilators have snapped to again. Green fly does not harass us. One ...
... of the lady's sons had a tea-plantation in Assam. No more was needed. By the next mail Mr. Forstermann started for that vague destination, and in process ...
... all as well as for himself-he was detained at Panama. Somewhere in those parts there is a magnificent Cypripedium with which we are acquainted only by ...
... name that arises to most people in thinking of warm orchids is Cattleya, and naturally. The genus Odontoglossum alone has more representatives under ...
... far as is known, in the great intervening region. Not even a connecting link has been discovered but the Atlantic coast of Central America is hardly ...
... collector-having nothing in the world to do-haunted those portals all day long, flying from one to the other in hope to see somebody coming. Very ...
... at Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, and smaller places, of course. It is vastly droll to hear that some of these gentlemen import ...
... neighbourhood even, is agreeable to their taste. It is a waste of money in general to make alterations if they do not like the place they won't live ...
... whole stock vanished presently, which is not surprising if it had all been divided in the same ruthless manner. From that day the species was lost until ...
... the dealers began to stir in earnest. From the first, indeed, the more enterprising had made efforts to import a plant which, as they supposed, must ...
... But very few reached England alive. For six weeks they travelled on men's backs, from their mountain home to the River Essequibo thence, six weeks ...
... ten hybrid Calanthes thirteen hybrid Cattleyas, and fifteen Loelias, besides sixteen natural hybrids-species thus classed upon internal evidence-and ...
... perhaps from its kindred. The reason for this state of things has been mentioned-natural laws have exterminated them in the spaces between, which ...
... if experiments already successful did not offer a chance of proof one day, and others, hourly ripening, did not summon us to think. I may cite, with ...
... to us. This Catasetum, wafted by the wind, when the seed was sown, found conditions suitable where it lighted, and quickened, whilst all its fellows, ...