OPHRYS OMEGAIFERA ssp. FLEISCHMANNII

Family:- ORCHIDACEAE

Common Names:- Velvet Ophrys-Fleischman.

Synonyms:- Ophrys Fleischmannii

Meaning:- Ophrys (L) Eye-brow, a name used by the Roman naturalist and

philosopher Pliny.

Fleischmannii (L) For the Viennese school director.

General description:- Small plants, delicate, often only around 10-20 cm high

Leaves:- Oval-shaped.

Flowers:- Inflorescence is sparse with 3-5 (-7) flowers. The bracts are bigger than

he ovary. The sepals are green; the lateral sepals converge slightly, and the mid-

sepal, bends over the column. The petals are green and wavy, with purple edging,

The lip measures 13-15 mm. with no split in its base. It is tri-lobed, and very hairy,

upright in position and has a bend in it like a kneejoint. The lateral lobes are

concave and very noticeable. The mid-lobe has a slight notch, and is dark reddish-

violet in colour. The blazon is very shiny, brown or dark blue in colour, with brown

high-lights, and is bordered at the top with a shiny design like a Greek omega - Ill,

in white, blue or Grey.

Fruit:-

Key features:-

1) Differentiated through the weak fold at the base of the lip, the small flowers and

the longer whitish hairs which also cover the area of the blazon.

Habitat:- Dry open shrubby vegetation, olive groves and fallow terraces. 0-1100 m.

Distribution:- Endemic Crete and perhaps some of the Kiklades. Somewhat

sparsely scattered across Crete. Not common.

Flowering time:- Jan to early June, peaking, Mar-April.

Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis

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.