SPECIES DESCRIPTION
SERAPIAS LINGUA Family:- ORCHIDACEAE Common Names:- Tongue orchid Synonyms:- None Meaning:- Serapias (Gr) After Serapis an Egyptian deity, a name used by the Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides for an orchid. Lingua (L) Tongue-shaped. . General description:- Tuberous perennials with unspotted leaves; bracts large and often coloured like the sepals. Flowers borne in dense to lax spikes; sepals and petals forming a close helmet above the lip. Tubers:- 2-5, 1 sessile, the others on stolons, ovoid to subglobose. Stem:- 10-25(-60) cm, with green, unspotted basal sheaths. Leaves:- Narrow, channelled (canaliculate), acute, entire, usually shiny, the first 4-8 vary from narrow and parallel-sided to lance-shaped, to concave to keel-shaped (carinate), 5-13 cm long. The upper 1-3 resemble bracts. Flowers:- Spike elongate, 2- to 9-flowered; bracts equalling flowers, purple, rarely greenish. Flowers 15-25 mm; outer perianth-segments ovate-lanceolate, acute, concave, free at apex, violet or purple, rarely white, sometimes with greenish markings; inner lateral slightly shorter than the outer. Labellum about twice as long as the other segments, with solitary black ridge at base; lateral lobes rounded, dark purple, hidden by a helmet-shaped structure (galea); epichile ovate-lanceolate, narrowing gradually to a point (acuminate), narrowed at base, narrower than hypochile, sometimes directed forwards, violet to reddish, rarely yellow or white. Fruit:- Key features:- 1) Bracts equalling or slightly exceeding flowers. 2) Lateral lobes of labellum black or dark purple. 3) Labellum with solitary black ridge at base. 4) Tubers 2-5 violet to reddish, 1 sessile, the others on stolons. Habitat:- Seasonally damp spots in dry open shrubby vegetation, scrubland vegetation, grassland and olive groves, usually on non-calcareous substrates. 0-600(-1100) m. Distribution:- Rather common in coastal areas of W Greece, not the interior. - SW Europe Widespread and the Mediterranean region eastwards to the Aegean area. Somewhat scattered distribution across Crete, but more common in the west. 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. SERAPIAS Tubers:- 2-5, ovoid to globose, entire. Leaves:- Narrow, canaliculate, acute, entire, usually shiny. Flowers:- In a spike. Outer perianth-segments ovate-lanceolate, acute, partially connate, connivent with the linear-lanceolate, acuminate inner lateral to form a galea. Labellum large, constricted into basal hypochile, with two indistinct lateral lobes, and prominent, pendent epichile. Spur absent. Column long. Rostellum small. Viscidium solitary; bursicle simple. Key features:- 1) Labellum divided by a constriction into a concave basal part (hypochile) and a flat, downward- or forward-pointing distal part (epichile). 2) Plant with tubers. 3) Epichile pendent. All species appear to hybridize readily with each other and with species of Anacamptis, Dactylorhiza, Ophrys and Orchis.