OPHRYS FUCIFLORA subsp CANDICA
Family:- ORCHIDACEAE
Common Names:- None
Synonyms:- Ophrys candica
Meaning:- Ophrys (L) Eye-brow, a name used by the Roman naturalist and
philosopher Pliny.
Candica (L) From Crete, Cretan.
Fuciflora (L) Drone-flowered (the superficial resemblance of the flower
to a drone-bee).
General description:- Short to medium perennial, to 55 cm tall, occasionally
taller.
Leaves:-
1) Basal:
a) oval to oblong.
b) blunt.
2) Stem leaves narrower, pointed.
Flowers:-
1) Spikes with 2-8 flowers, sometimes more.
2) Sepals:
a) pale purple, pink or whitish.
b) oval.
3) Petals:
a) brown or violet-brown.
b) velvety.
c) triangular to narrow parallel-sided to lance-shaped.
d) up to one third the length of the sepals.
4) Lip:
a) 9-13 mm long.
b) oval to rounded.
c) usually unlobed but with a large forward pointing tip.
d) velvety dark brown-purple, occasionally with a yellowish margin and a velvety
boss on each side of the base.
c) shield-shaped speculurn with a distinct white or yellowish margin.
Fruit:-
Key features:-
1) Perianth-segments pink, pale purplish or whitish.
2) Inner perianth-segments 1/5 as long as the outer.
3) Labellum with distinct basal protuberances
4) Speculum shaped like an oval dish (scutelliform), brown or violet-brown, with wide
whitish or yellowish margin.
Habitat:- Dry open shrubby vegetation, open coniferous woodland and fallow
terraces. 0-1100 m.
Distribution:- Widespread in W Europe and the C & E Mediterranean region
extending to SE Anatolia. Somewhat scattered distribution across Crete.
Flowering time:- Mostly Mar-Apr.
Photos by:- Saxifraga Ed Stikvoort
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.
OPHRYS
General description:- Tubers 2(-3), globose or ovoid, entire.
Leaves:- Usually in a basal rosette, sometimes also present on stem.
Flowers:- Perianth-segments more or less spreading (patent), unequal; outer
oblong or ovate, obtuse; inner lateral smaller, often hairy.The lowest petal (labellum)
entire to 3-lobed, often convex and pouch-like (gibbous), sometimes with an apical
appendage which is often deflexed, hairless (glabrous) or velvety (velutinous),
variably marked, with usually glabrous central area (speculum); spur absent.
Rostellum minute. Viscidia in 2 simple bursicles.
Key features:-
1) Labellum neither inflated nor slipper-shaped; with distinctively coloured and
shaped central area (speculum).
Many species of Ophrys can cross to produce hybrids, which are often fertile.