SPECIES DESCRIPTION
OPHRYS TENTHREDINIFERA
A distinct and easily identifed species. Individual variation in size, colour and
flowering time has led to the description of several species and subspecies that are
scarcely worthy of taxonomic recognition at any level. 1)
1) "Atlas of the Aegean Flora" Book1, Arne Strid 2016.
Family and Genus:- See- ORCHIDACEAE
Common Names:- Sawfly orchid
Homotypic Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Ophrys (L) Eye-brow, a name used by the Roman naturalist and
philosopher Pliny.
Tenthredinifera (L) Insect-bearing, harbouring sawflies.
General description:- Compact to relatively slender plant.
Stem:-
1) 10-30 cm tall.
Leaves:-
1) Basal, oval to lance-shaped, blunt or pointed.
2) Cauline, similar though generally narrower.
Flowers:-
1) Spike, (1-)3-6(-10) flowered in a rather dense.
2) Perianth-segments, purplish or purplish-violet, rarely whitish.
a) outer, 6-12 mm, broadly ovate, obtuse, glabrous, concave.
b) inner, usually 1/3 as long as the outer, broadly triangular, papillose-velutinous
3) Labellum, (8-)11-14 x 11-14 mm. obovate, square or flabelliform, convex, entire,
rarely oblong and distinctly emarginate or indistinctly 3-lobed. purplish-brown,
zone, with a glabrous appendage, with short, inconspicuous basal
protuberances.
4) Speculum, reduced, often 2-fid, rarely round and slightly scutelliform composed
of brown spots.
5) Connective, obtuse.
Fruit:-
1) Capsule, dehiscing by 3 or 6 longitudinal slits.
2) Seeds, numerous, minute, with undifferentiated embryo and no endosperm.
Key features:-
1) Labellum, entire to deeply 3-lobed, the lateral lobes not gibbous or deflexed.
2) Outer perianth-segments, purplish.
Habitat:- Dry open shrubby vegetation, open woodland, fallow fields, old olive
groves. 0-500(-1200) m.
Distribution:- Iberian Peninsula and N Africa eastwards to Turkey - not Cyprus.
Widespread and common on Crete.
Flowering time:- Feb to early May.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton & Fotis Samaritakis subsp. leochroma
