OPHRYS PHAIDRA

Family:- ORCHIDACEAE

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- None

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

philosopher Pliny.

Phaidra (Gr) Beaming, shining.

General description:- Short to medium perennial.

Stem:- Usually tall.

Leaves:-

Flowers:- From 2 to 8. Lip (12,3-14,1 mm., flowers, flat, usually bearing a wide

yellow margin. The coloration of the lip varies from brown to black. The speculum is

separated by a distinct central, longitudinal groove.

Fruit:-

Key features:-

Habitat:- Dry and alkaline soils, in dry open shrubby vegetation, at high altitudes.

Distribution:- Wide distribution throughout Crete, including Spili in Zaros, in

Asteroussia and the Thripti mountains.

Flowering time:- Apr-May.

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.