Orchids are generally scented flowers, and produce nectar which is stored either in the cavity of the spur, or within the tissue of the same. In the latter case it cannot be obtained by insects unless they bore into the substance of the spur, and the delay caused renders the removal of the pollen more certain. While the nectar is being withdrawn, the head of the insect is pressed against a sticky disc at the base of the pollen masses, with the result that both disc and pollen masses are bodily removed, and the insect leaves the flower with the whole attached to its head. It often happens, too, that the pollen masses bend forward as the insect flies through the air, and thus they are more likely to be pressed against the stigma when another flower is visited. Here, then, is another wonderful contrivance for the purpose of securing cross-fertilisation, and the whole process may be imitated by thrusting the point of a pencil into the spur of a flower which has not been previously visited by an insect, and then inserting the point into the spur of a second flower. It should be noted, also, that the pollen is not all removed by contact with the sticky surface of a stigma against which the pollen masses are pressed, and thus the pollen obtained from one flower will often fertilise several others. Our first species--the Broad-leaved Helleborine (_Epipactis latifolia_), is common in hilly woods, where it flowers during July and August. Its single stem grows from one to three feet high, and the leaves are broadly ovate and ribbed. The flowers are greenish, with reddish-purple lips, and are arranged in a long, loose, one-sided raceme. The sepals are ovate, longer than the acute lower lobe of the lip; and the bracts are generally longer than the flowers. The ovary is downy, and not so long as the bracts. (Plate II, Fig. 5.) The somewhat similar Large White Helleborine (_Cephalanthera grandiflora_), which bears creamy white flowers in May and June, is also common in some of the woods on calcareous soils. The Pyramidal Orchis (_O. pyramidalis_) grows in limestone pastures, flowering during July and August. This species varies from six to eighteen inches in height, and has linear, acute leaves. The spike of flowers is very dense, of a pyramidal form, and the individual blooms are small, usually of a rose colour, but occasionally white or nearly so. The sepals are spreading, and the lip of the flower has three equal lobes which are oblong and abruptly cut at the tips. The spur is slender and longer than the ovary.