Moreover, the pollen, instead of consisting of separate cells or grains, consists of cells aggregated into "pollen-masses," the number varying in different genera, but very generally two, four, or eight, and in many of the genera provided at the base with a strap-shaped stalk or "caudicle" ending in a flattish gland or "viscid disk" like a boy's sucker.
This column stands up from the base of the flower, almost at right angles to the lip, and it bears at the top an anther, in the two hollow lobes of which are concealed the two pollen-masses, each with its caudicle terminating below in a roundish gland, concealed at first in the pouch-like rostellum at the front of the column.
In orchids each of the pollen-masses has a prolongation or stalk (caudicle) which adheres to a prolongation at the base of the anther (rostellum) by means of a viscid gland (retinaculum) which is either naked or covered.
The two anther-cases in an orchis are erect and nearly parallel the one to the other; the pollen-masses within them are of course in like case, as may be thus represented II, but immediately the pollen-masses are removed movements take place at the base of the caudicle so as to effect the bending of this stalk and the placing the pollen-mass in a more or less horizontal position, thus -, or, as in the case of 0.