My dear Mr Darwin

I have again been seduced from red tape by your book and a handful of Habenaria viridis Peristylus viridis or whatever other name it is called by.¹ It does not work quite so surely & readily as O. Maculata, Mascula, & Listera Ovata, and I dont think nearly the same no of pollinia are removed— But here again on taking half a dozen pollinia out at the end of thin bits of quill & fixing them in a rest I find that they do not move at once—but at the end of 20 minutes or $\frac{1}{2}$ an hour most, if not all of them, have bent forwards so as to be in a line with instead of nearly ⊥ to the quill. By that time they have set hard.²

This is the position which with my clumsy handling I want them in to get to the stigma, for the lateral distance between the opening of the nectary & the stigma is so small, as compared with the length of the pollinia, that I cannot get them to when ⊥ to the quill touch it (except by thrusting their caudicles into the nectary with the quill—where they stay, bodily.) I suppose an insect by retreating and then coming forward again with his head bent down might do it— Is it possible that the pollinia may be setting hard & tending to get into the right position whilst the insect sucks the abundant nectar, and that then they are in the right position & well glued on, for another flower?

Pray put my notes in the fire and do not trouble yourself to answer. You are however by your books & good nature responsible for my idle dilettantism & the loss of your own time.

Listera Ovata is wonderful and never fails.

I shewed a wretched withered Op. Muscifera to Miss Darwin and she I think saw the pollinia bend.³

Sincerely yours | T H Farrer

I find several Stigmas of Hab. viridis fertilized, but none with whole pollinia attached to them.