LIMODORUM ABORTIVUM

Family:- ORCHIDACEAE

Common Names:- Violet limodore, Violet birdsnest.

Synonyms:- Jonorchis abortivum

Meaning:- Limodorum. Meaning unknown.

Abortivum (L) Miscarried, with missing or malformed parts.

General description:- Medium to tall, often rather stout, violet-tinged,

Rhizome:- Densely covered with thickish roots.

Stems:- 40-80 cm, erect, robust, rigid; scales numerous, no green leaves.

Leaves:- Without chlorophyll, reduced to numerous sheathing dark purple scales.

Large purplish bracts, lengthened to oval, acute.

Flower:- Rather large, 38-46 mm across, violet; sepals and petals spreading,

pointed, the petals slightly smaller; lip 14-17 mm long, yellowish stained with violet,

unlobed and with a short spur, to 15 mm long, at the base.

Fruit:- Tough and membranous capsules.

Key features:-

Habitat:- Coniferous and deciduous woodland, occasionally scrubland vegetation.

0-1100 m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece. - Widespread in C Europe and the

Mediterranean region, also through Anatolia to Caucasus and N & W Iran. Sparsely

scattered across Crete, but lacking in the central region.

Flowering time:- Mid-Apr to mid-July.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton

FAMILY AND GENUS DESCRIPTIONS

ORCHIDACEAE

General description:- Perennial herbs with rhizomes, vertical stock or tuberous

roots, terrestrial, sometimes obtaining nutrition from decaying matter (saprophytic),

usually with symbiotic fungi in or on the roots (mycorrhiza).

Stems:- Sometimes swollen at base to form pseudobulbs.

Leaves:- Entire, spirally arranged or in two opposite rows, one on each side of the

stem (distichous), rarely subopposite, reduced to scales or sheaths in saprophytes.

Flowers:- Inflorescence a spike or raceme. Flowers zygomorphic, the sepals,

petals and stamens apparently inserted higher than the ovary (epigynous), usually

hermaphrodite. Perianth-segments 6, in 2 whorls; median inner segment (labellum)

usually larger and of different shape from the others, usually directed downwards

owing to the ovary or the stem (pedicel) twisting through 180°, often with basal spur.

Anthers and stigma borne on a column formed from fused filaments and style;

stamens 1, rarely 2, with stalkless (sessile) or short-stalked (subsessile), 2-celled

(2-locular) anthers behind or at the summit of the column; pollen-grains single or in

tetrads, bound by elastic threads in packets (pollinia) which may be narrowed into a

sterile, stalk-like caudicle. Ovary inferior, 1-locular, with parietal placentation, rarely

3-locular; stigmas 3, all fertile, or with the median sterile and often consisting of a

beak-like process (rostellum) between the anthers and fertile stigmas; rostellum

often forming 1 or 2 viscid bodies (viscidia) to which the pollinia are attached;

viscidia sometimes enclosed in 1(2), simple or 2-lobed, membranous, pocket-like

outgrowths (bursicles) of the rostellum.

Fruit:- A capsule, splitting open to release the seeds (dehiscing) by 3 or 6

longitudinal slits; seeds numerous, minute, with undifferentiated embryo and no

endosperm.

LIMODORUM

General description:- Violet saprophytes (plants without chlorophyll which live on

humus) with short rhizome.

Stem:- Clothed with scale-like sheaths. Green leaves absent.

Flowers:- In an erect, spike-like raceme. Perianth-segments free, patent. Labellum

entire. Spur long, slender, curved upwards. Column long. Viscidium solitary;

bursicles absent.

Key features:-

1) Plant without green leaves

2) Spur long, slender

3) Labellum entire, directed downwards.