Habitats: Achladeri and Klapados.

Spiranthes spiralis, Achladeri, © Jan van Lent 30-10-2013 #024

Spiranthes spiralis (L.) CHEVALLIER 1827.

REMARKS: Last week, when I started this blog I wrote: ‘Yesterday I once again found a few autumn orchids in the pinewoods of Achladeri, and I was relieved’. Relieved because I was afraid that there would be no Spiranthes spiralis around on Lesvos this year because of the drought. Since the first days of June there wasn’t (for almost 5 months) any rain of significance. This was the same in 2012 but then in 2 days of torrential rains in October that autumn was back on the rails and so was the autumn orchid. But two years ago (2011) we had a terrible dry autumn, so no mushrooms, almost no autumn colours and no Autumn Lady’s Tresses (beautiful name in English by the way), at least not at the habitats I was checking.

Spiranthes spiralis, Achladeri, © Jan van Lent 30-10-2013 #106

Therefore again this year, still without any rain of significance until today, the 5^th of November, I decided last week to have a look at Klapados and Achladeri anyway in spite of the drought. Well in short, no, nothing at Klapados and yes, I found some at Achladeri but because I was accompanied by the ‘knitting bees’ I didn’t have the time (and the equipment) to properly photograph this very tiny – and to make it a little more difficult – also pure white orchid in a dark pine forest. I also had the impression that the ladies weren’t exactly impressed by the size of my Autumn Lady Tresses.
Indeed, if you imagine this small orchid (6-40cm) to be as big as for instance H. robertianum (100-120cm; see blog 5: ‘The big and the beautiful’ & 7: ‘Lost in wonderland’), it would certainly be more impressive! So I decided to come back a few days later.
And I did. Normally I have to drive deep into the Pine forest, through creeks and rivers, to arrive at the spot where Spiranthes spiralis were growing by the dozen. While photographing these orchids I am often watched by some soldiers, because around the corner, 50 meters further on and not visible from this spot, there is a military camp. All orchid researchers and photographers on Lesvos: be careful not to go around the corner with your eyes fixed on the forest looking for Autumn Lady Tresses and not on the road like I did once…
But not on this beautiful, clear and sunny day: I looked to the left and to the right in order to turn into the forest and what did I see? Hundreds of spiralis! All previous years there were no spiralis on this corner between the asphalt road and the forest track! I decided to drive on for a while to see if there were more and indeed: there were maybe thousands of Autumn Lady Tresses in this Achladeri Pine forest, even though for months there had been no rain… What a perfect day for an orchidologist!

Spiranthes spiralis, Achladeri, © Jan van Lent 30-10-2013 #055

HABITAT: I still remember the first day that I finally found my first Spiranthes spiralis. I was walking with naturalist and dragonfly expert Lopi (Wolfgang Lopau 1938-2009) in the beginning of October 2008 to the Klapados waterfall, which I couldn’t find because it is really very well hidden in this forest. But Lopi of course knew the way and when he nonchalantly pointed to the side of the very small path: ‘Oh by the way Jan, you’re almost standing on your Autumn orchid’ I saw it. And it was also that day that I discovered how difficult it is to make good photographs of this very small, white orchid. The nicely smelling flowers are only a few mm in size, and to smell their pleasant aroma you have to lay with your nose on the ground almost into the flower. And you also have to do this with your big, heavy camera if you want a close-up of those tiny flowers which looks as they are covered in white frost.

Spiranthes spiralis, Klapados, © Jan van Lent 4-11-2012 #103.

RESEARCH: Spiranthes spiralis is not a particularly popular orchid on Lesvos because it flowers when all West-European orchidologists are back to their writing desks or to the Spiranthes in their own country. Because the autumn orchid flowers almost everywhere in Europe in autumn, and its very rare sister Spiranthes aestivalis flowers in summer from the Pas-de-Calais down to the Mediterranean. There are two more Spiranthes in the world: the pink Spiranthes sinensis in Asia, Australia and New Zealand and Spiranthes romanzoffiana in the USA, although there are records that this last species also flowers in the western parts of Ireland, Scotland and England. And in the ‘mapping’ records or ‘finding places’ of the ‘Big Biel’ (1998) he and the other orchid researchers only mentioned the rosettes in spring (because the rosette for next year Spiranthes is already developing directly besides the flowering plant and hibernates into spring, the current rosette is already withered), except Hansen & Nielsen who saw the ‘real thing’ on the 10^th of October in 1990 SW of Milies. So that was maybe the first time that a foreign orchid researcher saw the flowers on Lesvos since C.A. Cardargy described Spiranthes spiralis (sub. nom. Spiranthes autumnalis) a hundred years earlier, in 1889.

Spiranthes spiralis, Klapados, © Jan van Lent 23-10-10 #052.

BOTTOM-LINE: There is no discussion among orchidologists about the name of the autumn orchid and its author; almost everybody agreed on Spiranthes spiralis (L.) by CHEVALLIER 1827 (Fl. Gén. Env. Paris 2:330, 1827), except DELFORGE (2005) and TAYLOR (2012); they go for 1753 as the described year. But the French doctor and botanist Francois Fulgis CHEVALLIER was born in 1796 and died in 1840, so it is hardly believable that he described this plant near Strasbourgin 1753. Maybe his father did… Anyway, in 1753 LINNAEUS described this plant as Ophrys spiralis so swapping those dates is understandable.

Spiranthes spiralis, Achladeri, © Jan van Lent 2-11-10 #149

‘Perfect Day’, 1972: Lou Reed (1942 – (27/10) 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y.
Sorry to abuse your song in combination with a flower Lou, nature was not your thing… although they are making heroin from the poppy flower!

Jan van Lent, Lesvos, 5-11-2013

Habitat: Mt. Spathi, Mixou, Pigi, Sanatorium Agiasos, Anemomilos (Koudouroudia), Loutropoli-Thermi.

Orchis quadripunctata, Anemomilos, © Jan van Lent, 10-4-13 #528

Orchis quadripunctata CYRILLO ex. TENORE (Prodr. Fl. Nap.: 53, 1811).
Orchis sezikiana B. & H. BAUMANN (pro hybr.) 1991.
The Orchis mascula-group, on Lesvos: Orchis anatolica, Orchis pinetorum?, Orchis provincialis, Orchis quadripunctata & Orchis sezikiana (Orchis quadripunctata ssp. sezikiana).

Orchis quadripunctata, Loutropoli-Thermi © Jan van Lent, 5-4-13 #232.

REMARKS: Most European and Greek orchid books mention only Orchis provincialis and Orchis quadripunctata from the Orchis mascula-group (DELFORGE 2005) as flowering on Lesvos. Daredevils like BAUMANN ET AL. in 1991 already featured  Orchis sezikiana as an autonomous sister taxon next to O. quadripunctata, but later on they declared it a subspecies. The experts are not sure about the existence of Orchis anatolica on Lesvos and almost nobody (except BIEL 1998 and KARATZÁS 2008) mentioned Orchis pinetorum as flowering on the island…
Already at the end of the 19^th century CANDARGY (1897: O. anatolica) & (1898: O. quadripunctata) was apparently not too sure about the characteristics of and the differences between O. quadripunctata and Orchis anatolica on Lesvos.

© Jan van Lent: O. quadripuntata Mixou, 8-4-10 #099; O.sezikiana Anemomilos, 10-4-13 #490; O.anatolica Mt. Petrovouni 2-5-11 #007.

As wasn’t BIEL (1998), because he didn’t list O. anatolica (nor O.sezikiana) as flowering on the island, only Orchis quadripunctata. And that was and is a surprise because he studied the island flora very thoroughly during 10 years. So didn’t he find Orchis anatolica on Lesvos? Well (translation by JvL): ‘The habitats known by the author contained mainly typical examples of O. quadripunctata, besides also individual divergent examples within the population with for instance a slightly elongated shape of the lip, with rounded lobes and 5 or 6 dots at the base of the lip. In addition 2 surveying groups reported 1 to 3 sites with O. anatolica. One report could be checked on the basis of surviving pictures. This turned out to be a very differently example of O. quadripunctata to the variation already described by RENZ in RECHINGER (1943): “O. quadripunctata is in the form and division of the lip very variable, rarely round and undivided. The inflorescence is occasionally elongated…” The second report was withdrawn by the finder after discussion of the sort norm (also divergent single examples).’ So a lot of confusion about O. anatolica and O. quadripunctata through the years, maybe O. quadripunctata is an Orchis in disguise…

Orchis quadripunctata in disguise, Pigi, Mt. Palamas, © Jan van Lent, 5-4-13 #141.

And was it all just about counting the dots? The ‘normal’ Orchis quadripunctata (which means of course four points or dots) should have 4 to 6 dots. This generally small Orchis has a dark red/purple stem and rosette leaves also with dark dots. The flowers are small and vary between pink, purple and white. The lip has 3 almost equally lobes, and is lighter in colour or white towards the base. The spur is long, thin and should be curved downwards. But to make it more difficult: I’ve seen quadripunctata with just 2, 3 or 5 dots or no dots at all and we don’t call them duopunctata, trespunctata or quinquepunctata. Well, chorispunctata I’m using for the taxa without dots.

Anemomilos, © Jan van Lent 10-4-13, same day, same habitat: #484 Orchis quadripunctata, #492 hybrid, #487 hybrid & #490 Orchis sezikiana.

HABITAT: One occurring problem is that sister species (or subspecies) Orchis (quadripunctata ssp.) sezikiana is almost always around on the same habitat as quadripunctata. This taxon should have between 8 and 12 dots, longer sepals and a longer lip, a thicker and somewhat ascending spur which should be even as long or a little bit longer than the ovary (BAUMANN ET AL.). And because both taxa are flowering on the same habitat at the same time there are a lot of hybrids between them (see #492 & #487). Actually almost every habitat on Lesvos has its own hybrids between quadripunctata´s and sezikiana´s. And to find a ‘normal’ Orchis quadripunctata was exceptional difficult this year as you can see in the above photographs #141 (spurs thin and curved downwards, middle lobe longer than side lobes) and to the right #041 (spurs pointing upwards and green stem).

Orchis sezikiana, near Karionas, © Jan van Lent, 6-4-13 #039.

Some orchidologists write that Orchis sezikiana is an in-between form between Orchis quadripunctata and Orchis anatolica because its flowers are bigger as quadripunctata; it has bigger sized sepals and more than 5 points or stains on the lip. That’s a nice theory but on Mt. Palamas (Pigi) and at Anemomilos (Koundouroudia) there are no Orchis anatolica around. And in the only places on Lesvos where I found ‘real’ anatolica (near Karionas and up from Mesagros (Mt. Petrovouni)) there are never ‘real’ quadripunctata in the neighbourhood, only Orchis sezikiana. So it is quadripunctata & sezikiana in one habitat and anatolica & sezikiana in a different habitat, and I never saw anatolica & quadripunctata flowering together in the same habitat.

O. quadripunctata var. albiflora (chorispunctata), Mt. Spathi © J. v. Lent, 16-4-09 #097.

And besides the hybrids there are also the pure white ones with red dots: var. albiflora SUNDERMANN, although only SUNDERMANN (1980) and KRETZSCHMAR (2004)have photographs of those variations. But Lesvos wouldn’t be Lesvos if we didn’t have other quadripunctata specialities like a pure white var. albiflora without red dots.
And I also found  a bicolour pink version with a dot-less lip that looks like Orchis quadripunctata var. brancifortii (BIV. 1813 p.sp.) BOISS. 1882 or in DELFORGE (2005) just Orchis brancifortii BIVONA-BERNARDI 1813 from Sicily and Sardinia, but mine has a bigger middle-lobe. If I should give this Orchis a (working) name then I go for var. theophrastinii after Theophrastos from Lesvos* instead of the Italian Prince Branciforti. Unfortunately I found them only once, so actually I can’t make two new taxa out of them…

Orchis quadripunctata var. theophrastinii. Mt. Spathi. © Jan van Lent, 26-4- 11 #092.

RESEARCH: But where is the ‘real’ Orchis quadripunctata flowering according to the orchid literature?
SUNDERMANN (Europe & Mediterranean, 1980): ‘It (O. quadripunctata) is an east Mediterranean taxon, particularly in Greece frequent but in the middle parts of the Mediterranean it occurs only locally: South of Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, Yugoslavian, Greece, Crete, Cyprus, in the south of Turkey and Lebanon.
But KREUTZ (Türkey, 1998) stated: ‘O. quadripunctata is only known from one location in the province of Bakhesir (North-west Turkey).
KREUTZ (Rhodos, Karpathos, 2002): No O. quadripunctata flowering on Rhodes, only Orchis anatolica and once upon a time in the seventies and eighties Orchis pinetorum.
KREUTZ (Cyprus, 2004): No Orchis quadripunctata flowering on Cyprus, only Orchis anatolica and Orchis sezikiana.
KRETZSCHMAR ET AL (Crete & Dodecanese 2004): Both O.rchis quadripunctata and Orchis anatolica are flowering on Crete, but Orchis quadripunctata is not flowering on Karpathos and Kasos. ‘The hybrid species (between Orchis quadripunctata and Orchis anatolica) has been designated in the eastern Mediterranean as Orchis sezikiana (pro. hybr.) by B. & H. BAUMANN. However, since especially in the case of the heterogeneity of the plants of easternCrete there are differences to those in the Turkish and Cypriot populations, this taxon is not included in the present book.’
DELFORGE (Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, 2005) about the distribution of O. quadripunctata: ‘Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Range distinct, from Mt. Gargano (It) and Campania (It) in the west to Cyprus in the east, and from Dalmatia in the north to Crete in the south; probably absent on Sicily and Sardinia, where replaced by Orchis brancifortii.’
BAUMANN ET AL (Europe, 2006): ‘South of Italy, Dalmatia, Albania, Greece (mainland and Peleponnese) with some offshore islands. South border is Crete.
KARATZÁ ET AL (Lesvos, 2008): In the south-east parts of Lesvos. He mentioned 11 habitats for O. Quadripunctata but only 2 (Megalochori and Mesouna) for O.sezikiana.
DELFORGE (Samos 2008): From the O. mascula species group Orchis anatolica (rather widespread), O.rchis pinetorum (rather widespread but only in the mountains), and Orchis provincialis (very local, only in the mountains); so no reports of Orchis quadripuntata on Samos.
DEVILLERS ET AL (Lesvos, 2010): They mentioned only O. quadripunctata and O. provincialis in their ‘Distributional and Biogeographical Notes’.
TAYLOR (Chios, Inouses & Psara, 2012): ‘Orchis quadripunctata found and photographed by Pantelis Saliaris on 6-5-2000, this still remains the only plant found to date on Chios.’ So no reports about the occurrence of Orchis sezikiana on Chios, but in return Orchis anatolica is flowering on the island.
PETROU & ET AL (Greece, 2011) about Orchis quadripunctata : ‘A species of the central Mediterrean; it occurs almost throughout mainland Greece, in the Peloponese, the Aegean islands and on Crete.’

SUMMARIZING: So reports of the existence of ‘real’ Orchis quadripunctata exists only from mainland Greece, the Peloponnese, Lesvos, Chios maybe and Crete. Not on Cyprus or Rhodes. And in Turkey only from one isolated spot in the north.

O. quadripunctata var. mascula?, var. pinetorum? Near Sanatorium, © JvL 2-5-12 #056.

BOTTOM-LINE: In an isolated spot in the Pine forest around Sanatorio Agiasos I found on 2-5-2012 a group ‘quadripunctata’, indeed with four spots, but the form of the lip is not quadripunctata nor sezikiana nor anatolica; it looks more like a small mascula or pinetorum. Pinetorum? Wasn’t it BIEL (1998) and KARATZAS (2008) who mentioned (as the only ones) O. pinetorum as flowering on Lesvos? Let’s have a look: ‘The species is probably very rare on the island, with until now 2 finding places (5 reports) with each time very few examples in the higher sites at the Olymbos mountain. They grow as well in the Pinus brutia forest on serpentine as also in the Chestnut forest on schist.’ (Abb.23: O.pinetorum Boiss. & Kotschy. 14.05.93 M. Parsons, Agiasos.) But Biel’s picture is so dark (and in black & white) that I even couldn’t recognize my mother if she was on it…
KARATZÁ’s 4 photographs (I suppose from Sanatorio and surprise, Vasiliká) are much better but I only recognize O.pinetorum in 2 photographs, the 2 others are in my opinion hybrids between O. anatolica and O.pinetorum. When I came back this year (on 29-4-2013) to exactly the same spot as on 2-5-2012 to look for ‘my’ pinetorum I was almost too late; almost all orchids were withered because of the sudden heat wave in the middle of April this year.

Orchis sezikiana or pinetorum, Karionas. © Jan van Lent 2-5-12 #274

I drove on that day through the Chestnut forest in the direction of Karionas. In the corner of a small hill I stopped for another quadripunctata shoot, at least that was what I expected. But those mascula-group species didn’t look like a recognizable taxon either, maybe another Orchis in disguise, Orchis pinetorum or var. theophrastinii? Or is it again Orchis sezikiana which is maybe slowly, slowly absorbing Orchis quadripunctata on Lesvos?

 Jan van Lent, Lesvos 1-8-2013

O. sezikiana, O. quadripunctata & var. theophrastinii together, © Jan van Lent 26-4-11 #109.

Bruce Springsteen: ‘Brilliant disguise’. (1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEUwljiHv4

*THEOPHRASTOS or THEOPHRASTUS (Lesvos, 372-287 BC), the “father of botany” was born on Lesvos and the first author to have used the word «orchis» (in ‘De Historia Plantarum’ [On the Natural History of Plants]).

Habitat: Amalí, Chestnut forest & Olymbos Agiasos, Megalochori, Varia, Klapados.

Limodorum abortivum var. rubrum or is it rosea?, Amalí, © Jan van Lent, 27-5-13 #203

Limodorum abortivum (L.) SWARTZ 1799;
Limodorum abortivum var. rubrum SUNDERMANN ex C.A.J. KREUTZ 1997;
Limodorum abortivum var. gracile (B. & E. WILLING) C.A.J. KREUTZ.
Limodorum abortivum f. gracile (B. & E. WILLING) P.DELFORGE.

HUNTING: Every time I go out hunting in this beautiful Pine forest around Ag. Amalí at the end of May or in June and I see a big, pink flower appearing between the trees, my heart stands still for a moment. Because in this first moment I think: Ah finally, Cephalanthera rubra! Because for years I’m now hunting for the Pink Cephalanthera on Lesvos: at Amalí, above Megalochori, the mountain above Mytilini and between Neochori and Plomari, following the descriptions from the ‘big’ BIEL* (1998), but all in vain.

Limodorum abortivum var. rubrum, Amalí, © Jan van Lent 27-5-13 #189 

HABITAT: Well, not completely in vain because at the end of May (27-5-2013) I saw this beautiful Pink Limodore shimmering through this ‘black’ forest. A little bit back, at the Panagia Amali, the Violet Limodores were already completely withered and looked again like immense Asparagus. Those ‘normal’ violet Limodorum abortivum are flowering everywhere on Lesvos, but one or two weeks earlier. This time I went to Amalí to photograph the three sister Epipactis: turcica, densifolia and helleborine (see blog 16: ‘River deep, mountain high’) and of course to look for the Pink Cephalanthera. I knew that the Red Limodore was flowering around Amalí because I already photographed this variation  two and four years ago. Those had a lot of flowers and were not standing alone but accompanied by others. The two Red or rather Pink Limodore I found today were different: one was tall (#181-189-203), had a lot of flowers (the half already withered) but was a ‘stand alone’; The other one (#206-209-210) was also standing alone but was relatively small, had only a few flowers and was very elegant. This one looked to me more like a Delicate Pink Limodore: Limodorum abortivum var. rosea f. gracile.

Limodorum abortivum var. rubrum f. gracile, Amalí, © Jan van Lent 27-5-13 #209

RESEARCH: There is not so much to research on the distribution of Limodorum abortivum because the plant flowers in almost the whole of Europe, from the Benelux countries as far as Cyprus and Turkey, and from France to the Krim and the Caucasus.
And because I went through all of my Limodorum photographs of the last 7 years I see that it is hard to find a real Violet Limodorum, I see purple, pink, yellowish, almost blue ones and a lot of two-tones: yellowish-violets and reddish-pinks. So let’s research all those colours of Limodorum abortivum, the Violet Limodore.

(Violet) Limodorum abortivum, Varia, © Jan van Lent 18-5-09 #065.

Well, that was a quick one:  SUNDERMANN (Europe 1980) describes Limodorum abortivum var. rubrum from Turkey: ‘flower colour red (carmine red).’ Carmine red?
I see pink!
KREUTZ (Turkey 1998) describes Limodorum abortivum var. rubrum from ten spots in Turkey. He points out that it is observed on Cyprus (MEIKLE, 1985), on Rhodos (TAUSCH 1995 & KRETZSCHMAR 1996) and on Lesvos (BIEL 1998).
KREUTZ (Rhodes & Karpathos 2002): ‘Besides the normal type, two striking colour varieties of Limodorum abortivum occur on Rhodes, one with red and one with purple-coloured flowers.’ But a red coloured variant was upgraded to species by the Italians BARTOLO & PULVIRENTI (1999): Limodorum rubriflorum. I don’t think that KREUTZ was very happy with this: ‘This is quite astonishing and not justified’.
On Cyprus (KREUTZ 2004): ‘There is no evidence available for the existence of this variety (var. rubrum) on Cyprus. Plants with very deep purple flowers however do occur on Cyprus.’

Limodorum abortivum f. bicolor, Varia, © Jan van Lent 18-5-09 #069

DELFORGE (2005) believes that the red variant from Anatolia and Cyprus should be named L. abortivum f. rubrum Rückbrodt; ‘a variant lacking evolutionary significance.’  ‘f.’ means form or variant, not variety. He has also Limodorum abortivum f. gracile in his stable, ‘spindly, 10-30cm tall, paler and smaller in all parts, flowering a little earlier (May). Known from a few stations around Megalopolis (Gr, Arcadia).’ Well, I don’t know those plants from Megalopolis but I certainly saw a lot of those ‘graciles’ on Lesvos. DELFORGE describes 3 other varieties: Limodorum abortivum var. trabutianum (Battandier) Schlechter 1886 with a very short spur (or none at all), half opening flowers which are standing vertically upright and pale purplish-green stems with numerous dark violet streaks. This variation appears rarely and sporadically in the western half of the range of L.abortivum; var. ‘thracum’ from Thrace (Gr.) with a very narrow lip and a 1mm long spur; var. ‘brulloi’ with a lip weakly divided in hypochile and epichile from Calabria (It.)

Limodorum abortivum with very thin sepals, a green stem and violet flowers, Klapados, © Jan van Lent 14-5-13 #144.

Those variations are also described by BAUMANN ET AL (2006), they have the better photographs and yes, they did it again: Limodorum trabutianum subsp. brulloi (BARTOLO & PULVIRENTI) H. BAUMANN & R. LORENZ, bravo!

But it are not only Italian orchidologists who invented new names. Our own KARATZAS (Lesvos 2008) also invented some, like Limodorum abortivum var. albiflorum. It is a lighter version (or completely white, but his photographs are maybe somewhat overexposed or bleached out in print) from Amalí. Maybe it was the one I photographed on the 28^th of May 2011 (#065).

Limodorum abortivum f. albiflorum, Amalí, © Jan van Lent 28-5-11 #065.

PETROU ET AL. (Greece 2011) choose for the variations ‘rubrum’ and ‘gracile’, so not the ‘f.’ version from DELFORGE. But with their description of those variations they did follow Delforge. But instead of going for Limodorum abortivum (L.) SWARTZ var. ‘thracum’ (BATTANDIER) SCHLECHTER like DELFORGE did, they choose to follow PRESSER: Limodorum trabutianum BATTANDIER subsp. thracum PRESSER. So a real ‘trabutianum’ species, not a variation anymore. On Lesvos I never encountered Limodorum trabutianum or one of its variations or subspecies, nor did anybody else.

On Samos (DELFORGE 2008) only the lonely ‘local’ Limodorum abortivum occurs and on Chios (TAYLOR 2012) they also have only ‘normal’ violet Limodorum abortivum.

Limodorum abortivum f. albiflorum, Sanatorium, © Jan van Lent 18-4-10 #074

BOTTOM-LINE: So the Greeks did well not to give any colour to the Greek name for Limodorum abortivum: Limódoro to ektrotikó (Aborted Limodore) and Xiloloúlouda (Wood flower). I also saw the name ‘Asparagus orchid’ in passing. And in my opinion there are (at least on Lesvos) two different variations of Limodore: the elegant plant with only a few flowers (gracile) and the flowery one with tens of flowers on the inflorescence (fiorito or fiorato, floralia, multiflori, densiflora or densiflorum to stay in the Italian & Latin languages). And then just add colours to them. You can choose any colour you like … as long as it is pink!

Jan van Lent, Lesvos, 17-6-2013.

Pink Floyd: ‘Any Colour You Like’ (1973).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmj05FE0Be8

Pink: ‘So What’, Pinkpop 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWGZxf3ESc

Limodorum abortivum var. rubrum, Amalí, © Jan van Lent 27-5-13 #186

*BIEL, B.: ‘Die Orchideenflora der Insel Lesvos (1998), Jour. Eur. Orch. 30 (2): 251 – 443. 1998.

Habitat: Larisos corner (the reeds).

The Larisos reeds-marshland © Jan van Lent 27-05-13 #053

REMARKS: On the North side of the Gulf of Gera – Pigadakia (Dipi) – and between the reeds (left and right) on the intersection to Plomari – the Larisos corner – there are lots of big Orchis to discover, all from the ‘old’ Orchis palustris group (DELFORGE 2005), nowadays Anacamptis BPC 1997* (IPNI* confirmed). To make it easier for the ‘amateur’ orchidologist to recognize those species I will quote DEVILLERS ET AL. (Lesvos 2010): ‘Paludorchis palustris, an alkaline mire specialist, has long been known to have substantial populations along the northern shore of the Gulf of Kalloni and the western and south-eastern shores of the Gulf of Geras (CANDARGY 1897, GOLZ & REINHARD 1981, 1989A, BIEL 1998, KARATZAS & KARATZA 2009, DELFORGE 2009b). It is difficult to completely evaluate their characters at that stage, but they appeared to represent var. elegans (or Paludorchis elegans), as is usually expected for Lesbos plants (BUTTLER & NIESCHALK 1979, DELFORGE 2009b). The taxonomy of what DELFORGE (2005) calls the palustris subgroup of the [P.] laxiflora group is, however, complex (e.g. BUTTLER & NIESCHALK 1979), and KARATZAS and KARATZA (2009) identify five Paludorchis on Lesbos (P. dinsmorei, P. elegans, P. laxiflora, P. palustris and P. pseudolaxifiora).’
So according to KARATZÁ (Lesvos 2008) five different ORCHIS, but nowadays you can apparently choose between Orchis, Anacamptis or Paludorchis, and maybe next year between a few more GENUS names. And I was a clairvoyant when I wrote: ‘It’s all about people with different views and orchids with different names; in short, it’s a hornets’ nest!’

(Anacamptis group) Orchis dinsmorei (SCHLECHTER) H. BAUMANN & DAFNI 1941;(Anacamptis group) Orchis laxiflora LAMARCK 1778;
(Anacamptis group) Orchis palustris JACQUIN 1786;
(Anacamptis group) Orchis pseudolaxiflora CZERNIAKOVSKA 1941;
(Anacamptis group) Orchis elegans HEUFFEL 1835.

Very big and very elegant: not Or. elegans but Or. palustris, © Jan van Lent 22-05-12 #151.

HABITAT: If you drive from Kalloni towards Mytilini you pass the exit to Plomari on your right and you see a huge field of reeds. Last year they burnt them down but today they are there again. This reed-bed is the home of a few of the biggest Orchis in the world! For instance I photographed an elegans with a length of 1m.20! But if you come too early to this habitat, for instance in the middle of April, you sure get wet feet, even if you wear rubber boots! And there is maybe only Orchis laxiflora around at this time. The hunting time for those big Orchises is between the beginning and the end of May. According to Karatzá the first to flower should be Orchis dinsmorei and the last Orchis elegans. So do take the exit to Plomari and stop directly on the left site of the road. First eat a perfect sandwich and drink a ‘frappé’ at the snackbar on the corner, put on your rubber boots and jump into the marshland. Have a nice swim!
So now there is only one thing left which should have your attention and that is: which Orchis is which?

Orchis palustris, Larisos reeds, © Jan van Lent 31-05-13 #097.

Orchis dinsmorei: very early flowering, small violet (aubergine purple) flowers with a very short, spotted lip and back folded side lobes.
Orchis laxiflora: lax inflorescence, no spots on a very stark backwards folded lip. (see blog 24: ‘Everybody Knows’ http://www.janvanlent.com/blog/?p=1944).
Orchis palustris: spreading lip with spots and stripes, spur not divided, as long as ovary, bracts ± equal to the flowers.
Orchis pseudolaxiflora: spreading lip, short spur, little shorter than ovary (on palustris half as long).
Orchis elegans; spreading lip with spots and stripes, longer leaves, three indistinct lobes and much longer bracts.

© Jan van Lent, 29-4-2013: O. laxiflora #082; O. palustris #079; O. elegans #076; Larisos reeds.

HUNTING: So I went 3 years (3-4 times a year) fishing in those reeds but I never caught O. dinsmorei… The earliest I caught were O. laxiflora, O. palustris and O. elegans (or maybe better: O. palustris ssp. elegans) together on the 29^th of April this year. I visited this habitat before, on the 14^th of April, but then the water was still so high that I had to wear my swim-suit and dive-equipment: in other words I couldn’t get in. And from the small hill where I was standing I couldn’t see any pink, purple or aubergine coloured Orchis rising above the reeds! But this year we had an exceptionally wet March and beginning of April, so maybe next year will be different…

Orchis elegans, Larisos reeds, © Jan van Lent 15-05-11 #337 

DISTRIBUTION: Directly into Turkey with (KREUTZ, Turkey 1998). And yes, he describes the whole Palustris group from Turkey: Orchis dinsmorei (only on the Syrian border), Orchis elegans (at the Mediterranean coast down from Kuşadasi), Orchis laxiflora (all over Turkey), Orchis palustris (all over Turkey) and Orchis pseudolaxiflora (only in the east of Turkey). And I know that in the past Lesvos was Turkish (or rather Ottoman), but that doesn’t say that we have all their orchids over here! So let’s see what Greece has to offer:

PETROU ET AL. (Greece, 2011) – A. laxiflora – : ‘A European and Mediterranean species; it occurs throughout Greece.’ - A. palustris ssp. palustris -: ‘A European and Mediterranean taxon; it occurs mainly in north-western and central Greece, Lesvos, and possibly Corfu; there are reports about its occurrence in the Peloponnese, the Cyclades and Crete.’ - A. palustris ssp. elegans -: ‘A Balkan and Asian taxon; it occurs in the northern and central mainland and in Lesvos.’ Okay, so Lesvos has apparently a special position in the palustris group but PETROU doesn’t say anything about dinsmorei or pseudolaxiflora flowering in Greece, not even on Lesvos…

Let’s look into Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the bigger view so to say. DELFORGE (2005) – Orchis dinsmorei -: ‘Eastern Mediterranean. From Israel north to Cilicia (Anatolia). – Orchis pseudolaxiflora -: ‘Eastern sub-Mediterranean and Asia. Central Anatolia east to Afghanistan and south to Yemen.’
And ‘we’ think we get the whole palustris group here on Lesvos on an orchid tray…

Orchis palustris, Larisos reeds, © Jan van Lent 19-05-11 #042

Orchis elegans, Larisos reeds, © Jan van Lent 15-05-11 #397

BAUMANN ET AL. (Europa mit angrenzenden Gebieten’2006): Orchis dinsmorei -: ‘Israel, Lebanon, W.-Syria, Turkey:Cilicia. Orchis palustris ssp. pseudolaxiflora -: ‘Distribution not clear. Certainly evidence from Algeria (Typus), Mallorca and Crete.’ And I didn’t mention their O.palustris ssp. pseudolaxiflora (Czerniak.) H. BAUMANN & R. LORENZ, did I?

But KRETZSCHMAR ET AL. (Crete & Dodecanese 2004) didn’t find O. pseudolaxiflora (or O. dinsmorei) on Crete or on the Dodecanese, only O.palustris and O. laxiflora. Orchis palustris flowers at one spot on Crete but not on Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes. ‘Occurrence greatly reduced owing to human activity. On the spots where it has previously been found, only one is still valid to date, but even this is seriously endangered owing to the progress of tourist development.’ And: ‘The Cretan plants of Orchis palustris intermediate between var. robusta and ssp. elegans.’ Orchis laxiflora flowers on Crete, Karpathos and Rhodes but: ‘The occurrence of the species has been strongly reduced due to human activity.’

KREUTZ (2002): on Rhodes & Karpathos O.dinsmorei & O. pseudolaxiflora are not present, only O. laxiflora & palustris.

KREUTZ (Cyprus 2004): On Cyprus only O. laxiflora & palustris. O.dinsmorei & O. pseudolaxiflora are not present. And: ‘Numbers of the exceptionally rare Orchis palustris have declined considerably due to drainage and the absence of precautionary measures, to such an extent that it is acutely threatened.’ And: ‘The already very rare Orchis laxiflora has declined considerably due to drainage, fertilisation and ever intensifying agriculture. It is therefore especially threatened.’

Also on Samos(DELFORGE 2008) O.dinsmorei & O. pseudolaxiflora are not present, only O. laxiflora and O. palustris var. elegans, but: ‘both extremely local and endangered by the destruction of the rare wet biotopes’.

Last but not least our neighbour island Chios. According to DELFORGE & SALIARIS (2007) there are no Orchids of the palustris group flowering on Chios but TAYLOR (2012) has a different opinion: Orchis laxiflora flowers on four locations in Chios.

© Jan van Lent, 31-5-2013: O. laxiflora #126; O. palustris x O. laxiflora #146; O.palustris x O. elegans #135; Larisos reeds.

BIG BOTTOM-LINE: What all the authors of all the Greek orchid-books are sure about is the acute endangerment of all those marsh-orchids on all islands in Greece. And why should we (Lesvos) be not only the only island, but also the only habitat in Greece to have all those 5 taxa from the Palustris group? Is this because there is not a lot of ‘human activity’ and we don’t have ‘tourist’s endangerments’, only a sheep and goats overkill? Or was this wishful thinking by Karatza? In any case, even one month later I think we still have only three taxa in the Larisos-reeds: Orchis laxiflora, Orchis palustris and Orchis (palustris ssp.) elegans, and not an O. dinsmorei in sight. But a lot of hybridisation is going on between those three, and sometimes (later in May) it is almost impossible to see the differences between laxiflora, palustris & elegans. And that could lead to the conclusion that there is a fake, a pseudo-laxiflora around here, and of course there is a fake one, but pseudo? I mean, you clearly see the differences, but comparing them with your field guides makes you want to eat them. The field guides I mean of course. In early May you are standing in a marsh, you feet are sinking away in the mud, and then you should be bending over to measure the length and width of the leaves and try to see if they are keeled? You try that and the water is now entering your boots and creeping up your pants. You try to do one step ahead, swump, swump, ah; there is a smaller one, maybe nevertheless a pseudo-laxiflora then?

Jan van Lent, Lesvos 5-6-2013.

Big Orchis in the Larisos reeds-marshland © Jan van Lent 11-05-11 #006.

‘She’s not there’, The Zombies (1965):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKBRc8zNQ30
And for ‘naturalists’ who loved his guitar solos and missed his moustache: Carlos Santana (1987) ‘She’s not there’. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlvyrsOzx2s

*BPC 1997 stands for (as we all should know nowadays) ‘genes approved and authorized by R. M. BATEMAN, PRIDGEON & M. W. CHASE 1997’, but is much shorter.

*IPNI (The International Plant List Index). Search Plant Names:
Anacamptis palustris:.http://www.ipni.org/index.html

Habitats: Agios Alexandros (Lafionas), Klapados & Pigidakia (Dipi).

Field with Orchis laxiflora, Agios Alexandros, Lafionas © Jan van Lent, 14-05-13 #090

Orchis laxiflora LAMARCK 1778 or Anacamptis laxiflora BPC* 1997.
DELFORGE 1995: Orchis palustris group; Orchis laxiflora subgroup.

Orchis laxiflora, Agios Alexandros, Lafionas © Jan van Lent, 14-05-13 #031

HABITAT: There are three habitats on Lesvos where I always get wet feet during ‘hunting’ the Loose or Lax-flowered Orchid; the first one is the marsh above Lafionas next to the basilica of the first bishop of Lesvos: Agios Alexandros. The second one is on the banks of the small stream (called the Kyprianou) leading from the ‘Klapados’ waterfall to Dafia, and the third one are the marshes on the Gulf of Gera near Pigadakia or Dipi. As a matter of fact there is a fourth one: in the reeds on the Larisos corner at the junction of the road to Plomari with that from Kalloni to Mytilini, but you have to be early there. I know there could be more habitats on Lesvos: KARATZÁ (Lesvos 2008) describes 5 more spots (Sígri, Gavathas, Pedí, the Katsinia bay down from Avlóna but I think I’ve never been in all those places at the right time… Molivos (well, I’m there at the right time but maybe this habitat is gone, like so many others in Greece in the last few years, and no, not only because of sheep & goats but tourists this time, although we don’t have so many of this last specimen on Lesvos).

Orchis laxiflora, Pigadakia, Dipi © Jan van Lent, 14-04-13 #017

REMARKS: I’m not going into the Orchis – Anacamptis genus renaming this time because I’m still trying to read & understand (this will take some months) R. M. BATEMAN’s recent ‘Circumscribing genera in the European orchid flora: a subjective critique of recent contributions (2012)’ and also H. F. PAULUS (2012): ‘Neues zur Klassifikation europäischer Orchideen oder: wie beliebig ist Systematik?’
In translation: How arbitrary is systematic?
So why not assign Orchis laxiflora to an Anacamptis group? That will hurt less…
And what is there to research on Orchis (Anacamptis) laxiflora?

Orchis laxiflora var. rosea, Agios Alexandros, Lafionas, © Jan van Lent, 14-05-13 #103

RESEARCH: Well, not much: SUNDERMANN (1980) described Orchis laxiflora with 3 subspecies: ssp. laxiflora, ssp. palustris and ssp. robusta (only North-Africa, Mallorca). But SUNDERMANN (and he is the only one) describes 2 variations: var. albiflora (with white flowers) and var. rosea (with soft pink flowers).
KREUTZ (Turkey 1998) also mentioned some (one?) white Orchis laxiflora from one habitat between Marmaris and Datça (Muğla) in Turkey, found by LINKER in 1995 but nothing about pink coloured specimens. Also in his Rhodos and Karpathos book, KREUTZ (2002) mentioned white Orchis laxiflora at a few locations on both islands.
In the Orchids of Cyprus (KREUTZ, 2004): ’Orchis laxiflora is among the rarest and most threatened orchids of Cyprus and is currently only known from just a few sites.’
But nothing about white or colour variations, just deep violet to reddish violet.

Orchis laxiflora, Pigadakia, Dipi © Jan van Lent, 14-04-13 #050

KRETZSCHMAR (2004) didn’t describe the white and pink variations of Orchis laxiflora as variations but he mentioned them and actually had a photograph of a pink coloured Lax-flowered Orchid.
Even DELFORGE (2005) didn’t has those two variations (as a variation) in his book but under the header Varations he has: ‘Little variation. Distinct from O. palustris particulary in its flower colour and strongly convex lip, with the median lobe short or absent.’

If we stay with the European Orchid Literature & Field Guides we fly now to Germany to BAUMANN ET AL (2006) for their opinion about the Orchis laxiflora ‘complex’ and to see how many species are allowed to carry their name. Still Orchis laxiflora I must say because they described Anacamptis laxiflora BPC* 1997 as a synonym. In the index I found 3 subspecies and one variation under Orchis laxiflora (ssp. dielsiana Soó; ssp. elegans (Heuffel) Soó see: O.palustris ssp. elegans; ssp. palustris (Jacq.) Bonnier & Layens see: O.palustris ssp. palustris and variation dinsmorei Schlechter, but finally they went for Orchis dinsmorei (Schltr.) H. Baumann & Dafni (Yes, I knew it! Was it a hard decision guys?) but they didn’t mention any colour variations under O. laxiflora.

PETROU ET AL (2011): Anacamptis laxiflora BPC 1997*.  ‘It is easily recognizable by its very dark flowers and the shape of the lip.’ Yeah, well, those very dark flowers I don’t see often on Lesvos, maybe because they are already mixed with Orchis palustris and elegans who have a much lighter colour.
And is it not interesting to see that TAYLOR (2012) only has very light coloured or even pink Orchis laxiflora in his Checklist of Orchids of Chios, Inouses & Psara, no dark laxiflora on Chios, our neighboring island? More interesting is the fact that DELFORGE & SALIARIS (Chios, Inouses & Psara 2007) don’t even mention Orchis laxiflora at all…

But the most interesting thing is that DEVILLERS ET AL (Orchids of Lesvos 2010) didn’t notice Orchis laxiflora on Lesvos. And that is a very big relief because otherwise we should now learn everything about ‘Vermeulenia laxiflora’, ‘Herorchis laxiflora’, ‘Anteriorchis laxiflora’ or maybe even ‘Odontorchis laxiflora’…

Orchis laxiflora, Kiprianou, Klapados © Jan van Lent, 11-05-09 #075

BOTTOM-LINE: So also on Lesvos you don’t recognize Orchis laxiflora just by their very dark violet flowers. Go for the lax inflorescence, the very small shape of the lip (in front view) and the unspotted white centre of the lip – although the lip has some very light coloured, hardly recognizable spots. On Lesvos they have anyway. And everybody knows that you get easily confused between Orchis laxiflora, palustris and elegans, so don’t you worry: palustris and elegans have much broader lips with lines and spots, and they don’t look like Jesus Christ hanging on the cross.

Jan van Lent, Lesvos, 26-5-2013.

*BPC 1997 stands for ‘genes approved and authorized’ by:
R. M. BATEMAN, PRIDGEON & M. W. CHASE 1997’.

Leonard Cohen: ‘Everybody Knows’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDphyrGiaJE

Habitat: Eftalou & Agiasos.

Cephalanthera epipactoides, Eftalou, © Jan van Lent 23-4-13 #063.

Cephalanthera epipactoides Fisher & Meyer 1854.
Cephalanthera longifolia (L.) Fritsch 1753.
The genus Cephalanthera L.C. Richard 1818,
on Lesvos: C.epipactoides, C.longifolia, maybe C.damasionum and C.rubra.

Cephalanthera epipactoides, Eftalou, © Jan van Lent 23-4-13 #030.

REMARKS: The last blog I started with the sentence that ‘it was not so long ago that Ophrys iricolor was hunted down for the first time on Lesvos; it was in 1978 and P.PEISL and H.R. REINHARD were the hunters’. Now I have to start with: It is already very long ago that Cephalanthera longifolia was spotted for the first time on Lesvos. It was in 1897 by the French explorer P.C. CANDARGY under the name C.ensifolia. Cephalanthera epipactoides had to wait almost 70 years (until 1969) before E. STAMADIADOU discovered the plant on Lesvos. And then, in 1995, G. BLAICH described a C.longifolia variation under the name Cephalanthera longifolia var. chlorotica.

Cephalanthera epipactoides, Eftalou, © Jan van Lent 23-4-13 #043.

HUNTING: You don’t have to hunt the Long- or Sword-leaved cephalanthera on Lesvos; if for instance you walk the path from Agiasos up to Olymbos in May you almost stumble over them. And also in the Chestnut forest you can’t miss those white flowers with the long leaves in front of all the green. C.epipactoides is another story. I have been hunting almost 5 years for this taxon (like I still do for C.damasionum and C.rubra: still didn’t find them) behind the airfield of Mytilini but it never appeared. And if I look in the ‘Big Biel’* I only see a hamlet and a small fishing harbour with the name Kratigos appearing as the habitat of C.epipactoides. The last time anyone saw it ‘live’ was B. Biel on 16.05.1996: ‘70m W border Kratigos (=?Agrilia Kratigou), steep mountain slope in light Pine forest and Olive tree border: Anacamptis pyramidalis, Cephalanthera epipactoides, Cephalanthera epipactoides var. chlorotica, Ophrys mammosa.’
Until last week; in Eftalou.
And not in a (light) Pine forest but on a cliff in the middle of the phrygana up from the beach with almost the same view of Turkey as I have when I walk to my beach, so at a distant of 2km from my house. The plants were discovered by Leon Boogaart and Anke Sinnema, who came for the first time to Greece, for the first time to Lesvos, on their first day and on their first walk. And there it was: Cephalanthera epipactoides. Yep. And they thought that it was quite normal to find a Helleborine-like cephalanthera in Eftalou, that is, until they met me the next day for a 3 day orchid hunt…

Cephalanthera epipactoides, Eftalou, © Jan van Lent 23-4-13 #049

RESEARCH: In SUNDERMANN (Europäische und mediterrane Orchideen, 1980) I didn’t find an orchid with the name Cephalanthera epipactoides, but I found Cephalanthera cucullata ssp. epipactoides, actually the same plant if you look at the photographs and read SUNDERMANN’s descriptions: ’25-100cm, lower leaves bag shaped, the higher ones often flat and sticking out; the stem is often already from the lower fifth filled with up to 40 flowers; flowers white; spur 3-5mm long.
Habitats: ‘Eastern Aegean islands, Turkey (from the Galipoli peninsula eastwards approx. to the Mersin province in the South, in the North to Artvin.)’ He has 3 more subspecies of C. cucullata: ssp. cucullata (only in the Ida mountain on Crete); ssp. kurdica (in the east of Turkey, the north of Syria and Persia) and ssp. floribunda (east Pontus, Kaukasus). And of course he described C.longifolia (no subspecies here), C.rubra and C.damasionum with ssp. caucasica and kotschyana.

Cephalanthera longifolia, Agiasos, Chestnut forest © Jan van Lent 29-4-13 #028

Twenty-five years later nothing changed much, only ssp. floribunda left the scene.
DELFORGE (2005) now described  the remaining 8 Cephalanthera as species, not as subspecies anymore, for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East: C.kotschyana (eastern Anatolia, Azerbaijan), C.caucasica (South-eastern Caucasus and North Iran); C.damasionum (Europe and Asia in the temperate and sub-Mediterranean zones); C.longifolia (Europe and Asia in the temperate and sub-Mediterranean zones, from the Atlantic to the Himalayas, northwest to Trondheim in Norway); C.rubra (Europe and Asia in the temperate and sub-Mediterranean zones, from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea) C.epipactoides (Eastern (sub-) Mediterrean, from northern Greece (Thrace) east to Antalya and Ordu (Anatolia); C. kurdica (the Near East) and C.cucullata (endemic to Crete).
There are 5 Cephalanthera’s flowering in Greece: C.epipactoides, C.longifolia, C.damasionum, C.rubra and C.cucullata. (PETROU, 2011). From these 5 taxa, 4 should been flowering on Lesvos (KARATZÁ, 2008); only C. cucullata is not around because Lesvos is not Crete.
Those 4 Cephalanthera on Lesvos are clearly distinguished from each other;
C.epipactoides has small leaves, broad bracts and a spur on the back of the flower, C.longifolia has long, lanceolate leaves; the upper bracts are very small and it has a yellow blotch on the edge of the lip, no spur.
C.damasionum: bracts longer than the upwards facing flowers, larger flowers, epichile orange inside with yellow ridges; no spur.
C.rubra is pink/red.

So far, so good. But which of those is this Cephalanthera on the right picture then?

Chestnut forest 8-5-2011: #087 Cephalanthera longifolia; #078 Cephalanthera x schulzei or schaberi?

On the 8^th of May 2011 I was photographing a group of Cephalanthera in the Chestnut Forest above Agiasos when I saw one Cephalanthera standing behind a tree stump with a lot of brown spots on the, compared with longifolia, bigger flowers. This one also had much shorter leaves and the leaves didn’t have the veins which are so characteristic for C. longifolia and the texture of those leaves was very soft and smooth, not rough like the ones from longifolia. They looked like the ones from Cephalanthera damasionum. But the plant had the typical longifolia inflorescence, so without the long bracts between the flowers. In his book ‘Die Orchideen der Türkei’, KREUTZ (1998) describes a few Cephalanthera longifolia-hybrids: Cephalanthera damasonium x Cephalanthera longifolia = Cephalanthera x schulzei E.G.CAMUS, BERGON & A.CAMUS 1908 and Cephalanthera epipactoides x Cephalanthera longifolia = Cephalanthera x schaberi H.BAUMANN 1980.
KREUTZ: Cephalanthera x schaberi: ’Described from the province Çanakkale on the Gabibolu peninsula (9-5-1980). A specimen was also found (28-4-1988) on a cemetery in the neighbourhood of Yapildak (Çanakkale).’ Well, Çanakkale is opposite Lesvos, so which is this Cephalanthera with the brown spots (#078, #079)?
But I have to go for Cephalanthera x schulzei because those lower leaves look more the same and even with my loupe I can’t see the most finicky spur on the flower…

BOTTOM-LINE: And I should have known when I looked closely at the photographs that some plants had already completely vanished and that a lot of leaves had been nibbled. But I thought that the sheep maybe didn’t like Cephalanthera epipactoides and that they wouldn’t come back. But they did in the next days and finished all Cephalanthera completely, down to the ground. Two days later it was Greek Easter. I ate as much sheep as I could that day but I don’t think it helped to preserve those epipactoides next year.

Cephalanthera epipactoides, Eftalou, 23-4-13 #061 & 3-5-13 #001 © Jan van Lent.

But then I got a message from friends that they found yesterday a bunch of not yet eaten (because they were hidden under a garbage dump) C. epipactoides opposite of the Sanatorio above Agiasos! So here they are, standing in the rain in the immaculate forest …

Cephalanthera epipactoides, Sanatorio, Agiasos, © Jan van Lent 10-5-13 #137

Jan van Lent, Lesvos, 11-5-2013

‘With a little help from my friends’: Joe Cocker, 1968, this version is from 2002.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wG6Cgmgn5U
In Memory of Joe Cocker, 1944-2014.

*Big Biel: see ARTICLES.
*Vicariant: allopatric* taxa originating from the same ancestral species.
*Allopatric: species occupying geographic ranges that do not overlap.
*Sympatric: species occurring in the same area or whose ranges overlap.

Cephalanthera epipactoides, Sanatorio, Agiasos, © Jan van Lent 10-5-13 #122

Habitat: Alifantá & Larisos corner.

Ophrys iricolor, Alifantá, © Jan van Lent 10-4-13 #111 & #113.

Ophrys iricolor Desfontaines 1807 
The Ophrys iricolor group, on Lesvos: O. iricolor & O. mesaritica.

HUNTING: It’s not so long ago that Ophrys iricolor was hunted down for the first time on Lesvos; it was in 1978 and P.Peisl and H.R. Reinhard were the hunters.The thing is that it is almost impossible to miss Ophrys iricolor when you’re out there hunting. It’s big (the lip is between 16 and 25mm), the blue colour on the lip so loud and shiny that even if you want to ignore it, it still attracts you eye. And actually you want to ignore it because IF you want to be sure it’s Ophrys iricolor you have to turn it upside down to see the colour of its bottom (see Blog 3 Ophrys mesaritica: ‘Bottoms Up’), and that is a dangerous thing to do because ‘normally’ Ophrys iricolor has only two flowers on the stem so you don’t want to break one off. Stems with 4 or 5 flowers are seen rarely on Lesvos and then it maybe indicates that its predecessor and sister species Ophrys mesaritica is or was around in the neighbourhood. Or is it ‘politically’ more correct to say that the pollinator of O. mesaritica, Andrena nigroaenea, is maybe still around in April on the same habitat? Or maybe it just IS a very late O. mesaritica with the looks of O. iricolor?In other words: is it an Ophrys in disguise?

Ophrys iricolor? Larisos corner. © Jan van Lent 21-3-13 #099.

RESEARCH: Questions, questions, questions. So let’s first read in the books the description of the colour of the underside of the iricolor lip: PETROU: crimson; DELFORGE: entirely purple; ANTONOPOULOS: purple; PEDERSEN/FAURHOLDT: wine-red; KRETZSCHMAR: brilliant red ‘rainbow colours’; BAUMANN: brown-red; SUNDERMANN: brownish; KARATZA: red; KREUTZ: intense reddish to reddish brown. Does this mean that everybody sees something different or describes something different? And I have to say that after turning around hundreds of mesaritica and iricolor I also don’t see (it) clearly anymore. So let’s look at the next photographs of an Ophrys iricolor with an almost white bottom. Or is this again a very late O. mesaritica in a very early season? And the no’s 236, 242 & 241 are in my opinion also O. mesaritica but with a blood-red ‘iricolor’ bottom. If this is the case than maybe O. mesaritica is not only a very early taxon but it can flower also until mid-April.

Ophrys mesaritica? Alifantá, © Jan van Lent 10-4-13 #217 & #218

But let’s see what my latest acquisition about Greek orchids (PETROU et al 2011) has to say about the lip (or labellum) of Ophrys iricolor: ‘Lip constricted at its base, nodding to, usually, horizontal, broadly rhomboidal, velvety, tri-lobed, dark reddish-black; lateral lobes rounded, reaching the tip of the median, which is short and bi-lobed. Speculum almost black, with shiny mauve-blue iridescent spots and a shiny W-shaped edge; it is divided in two by a vertical black line, and reaches the middle of the lip. FLOWERING: from February to April.’

Ophrys mesaritica: lip pendant, constricted at its base, rhomboidal, velvety, tri-lobed, dark brown-black, lateral lobes rounded, median considerably longer and slightly bi-lobed. Speculum brown-black, with dull, grey blue iridescent spots and a grey-blue W-shaped edge; it is divided in two by a vertical black line, and exceeds the middle of the lip…..Underside of the lip is whitish-green with red edges. FLOWERING: from December to February (March).

Ophrys mesaritica? Alifantá, © Jan van Lent 10-4-13 #235, 241, 242.

But this season a group of Ophrys iricolor felt the need to buy a new speculum in the Pseudophrys shop, to make the iricolor-group a little bit more interesting. Or is this flushing red colour of the speculum an indication that they are ashamed that I always look at their bottoms? Are they shy? Then I suggest that I (and everybody else) should leave the undersides of iricolor and mesaritica in peace, because maybe it doesn’t say anything about the difference between the two sister species, and you can’t tell them apart (on Lesvos) by looking at their bottoms.

Ophrys iricolor? Larisos corner. © Jan van Lent 21-3-13 #059

But the question remains why those Ophrys mesaritica/iricolor suddenly have a red speculum this year at the Larisos corner (see Blog 3 Ophrys mesaritica: ‘Bottoms Up’).
Can this be by reason of pollinator shift? In other words: Is here another pollinating Andrena bee involved? This will be another nice subject for a study of scholars like PHILIPP M. SCHLÜTER, PAULO M. RUAS, GUDRUN KOHL, CLAUDETE F. RUAS, TOD F. STUESSY and HANNES F. PAULUS. Because in their study from 2009: Genetic patterns and pollination in Ophrys iricolor and O. mesaritica (Orchidaceae): sympatric* evolution by pollinator shift, they declared: ‘Ophrys iricolor and O. mesaritica are a pair of morphologically similar, closely related sexually deceptive orchids from the eastern Mediterranean. Ophrys iricolor is known to be pollinated by Andrena morio males and the specific pollinator of Ophrys mesaritica is determined as Andrena nigroaenea. Amplified fragment length polymorphism revealed O. iricolor and O. mesaritica to be genetically intermixed on the whole, although populations of O. iricolor and O. mesaritica in geographical proximity are strongly differentiated, suggesting that specific pollinators locally differentiate these taxa. Based on the available biological data and the system of pollinator attraction operative in Ophrys, we hypothesize that O. mesaritica may have arisen from O. iricolor by pollinator shift and that this is more probable than scenarios invoking hybridization as a result of mispollination by rare, non-specific flower visitors or specifically attracted insects.’

Ophrys iricolor? Larisos corner. © Jan van Lent 21-3-13 #069

Okay, but then we read also Shuqing Xu, Philipp M. Schlüter, and Florian P. Schiestl  2011: ‘Pollinator-Driven Speciation in Sexually Deceptive Orchids’.
‘In our metastudy, we did not include floral colour, because most descriptions of floral coloration are based on observations by human eyes and not on insect vision models. After the pollinator has landed on a flower, floral morphology such as labellum shape, size, and texture may have a strong influence on pollinator behaviour. In orchids, precisely removing and delivering pollinia is highly dependent on the match of shape and/or size of the pollinators’ body and the floral labellum. Besides floral scent, floral phenology* and floral morphology* may also play a role in floral isolation among closely related species. Some species pairs show no overlap in flowering time in sympatry*, (e.g., O. iricolor and O.mesaritica on Crete). Among such species pairs, floral phenology may act as a strong reproductive barrier. However, as most closely related species pairs (∼90%) of sexually deceptive orchids do overlap in their flowering times to a certain degree, floral phenology alone is usually not the primary reproductive barrier. Differences in floral labellum length between closely related species pairs may contribute to mechanical reproductive isolation as well.’

Ophrys iricolor? Larisos corner. © Jan van Lent 21-3-13 #071

BOTTOM-LINE: I think that the pollinator bees of orchids and especially the Andrena bees of the Pseudophrys-group can be sexually very, very deceptive! In other words: they are as perfidious as human beings and they commit adultery all day and all of the night! Maybe that’s why those Ophrys are flushing…

Ophrys iricolor, Larisos corner © Jan van Lent 21-3-13 #102

Jan van Lent, Lesvos 24-4-2013.

The Kinks: ‘All Day and All of the Night’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4DV-5d6a5g

*Phenology is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). In the scientific literature on ecology, the term is used more generally to indicate the time frame for any seasonal biological phenomena, including the dates of last appearance (e.g., the seasonal phenology of a species may be from April through September). (Source: Wikipedia.)

*Morphology is the study of the (form or shape) of an organism or part thereof. Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or Taxon and its component parts. (Source: Wikipedia.)

*Sympatry: In biology, two species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus regularly encounter one another. (Source: Wikipedia.)

Habitat: above Alifantá.

Ophrys cinereophila, Alifantá. © Jan van Lent 21-03-13 #113

Ophrys (fusca ssp.) cinereophila H.F. Paulus & Gack, 1998
The fusca group, on Lesvos also:
Ophrys sancti-isidorii, Ophrys leucadica, Ophrys calocaerina.

Ophrys cinereophila, Alifantá. © Jan van Lent 21-03-13 #207

HUNTING: Well, what I have to do to ‘shoot’ O. cinereophila is not actually hunting!
I just have to drive towards Mytilini and take the first exit to Alifantá because I can only find Ophrys cinereophila there, above Alifantá and not in large stands but only a few. BIEL (1998) described this plant with the very tiny flowers from a few more habitats on Lesvos like Moria, Skopelos, Pigí and above Mytilini. But the city of Mytilini made a new road, connecting the ‘highway’ to Mytilini and the east coast, actually to the electricity power plant. But on this new road there is nowadays a gypsy camp on the habitat described by BIEL (MD.52.98) so I couldn’t check that one out. KARATZÁ (2008) described this Small Flowered Brown Ophrys from a lot of places in the east (in the triangle between N. Kidoníes, Thermí and Pigí), in the deep south (between Plomári – Mágeiras and Tárti) and west from Mytilíni (Mória, Alifantá, Loutrá). MANNING found Ophrys cinereophila at Andissa, Pigi, Loutra, Anemomilos and the Koumari hills. S. & K. HERTEL (2005) found just 4 plants and 1 hybrid on Lesvos near Mytilini (Alifantá?), but 20 plants on Chios and not one on Samos or Ikaria.

Ophrys cinereophila, Alifantá. © Jan van Lent 21-03-13 #138

RESEARCH: Let’s see how the names and authors of this ‘friend of the ash coloured’ changed through the last 30 years.
1980: SUNDERMANN (Europe). No cinereophila in sight in 1980: only O. fusca with iricolor, omegaifera, pallida and atlantica.
1998: Ophrys cinereophila is described in Jour. Eur. Orch by PAULUS & GACK.
Also BIEL (Lesvos 1998) already differentiated between Ophrys cinereophila-fusca, flavipes-fusca, blithopertha-fusca and O.attaviria in his essay ‘Die Orchideenflora der Insel Lesvos’, which he published (by chance?) in the same issue of Jour. Eur. Orch. as the article of PAULUS & GACK (1998) in which they described Ophrys cinereophila.
KREUTZ (Turkey 1998 – from the same year) instantly made a remark about Ophrys cinereophila H.F. Paulus & Gack 1998 about getting confused between Ophrys funerea and Ophrys cinereophila but: ‘According to Paulus & Gack (1995) O. funerea is a clearly defined species, which occurs only on Corsica and Sardinia’.
2001: The ANDERSONS (Lesvos), famous (or notorious) for their walking books, didn’t mentioned Ophrys cinereophila in their booklet ‘Orchids Of Lesvos’, they only mentioned the ‘sombre bee orchid’ Ophrys fusca, flowering from the first week of February until the second week of April. But: ‘On Lesvos, some of the challenges within the genus Ophrys include distinguishing O. attaviria, O. sitiaca and O. fuscain the Ophrys fusca group. Yeah, can we go back to those times when the names of orchids were simple, well defined and understandable…
2002: KREUTZ (Rhodos, Karpathos, 2002). Large stands of Ophrys cinereophila.
2004: KREUTZ (Cyprus 2004). Large stands and many habitats of Ophrys cinereophila (synonym: O. fusca ssp. cinereophila (H.F. Paulus & Gack 1998) N. Faurholdt 2002. Faurholdt? What does he has to do with Ophrys cinereophila? Ah, he was the great inventor in 2002 of ‘fusca ssp.’ between Ophrys and cinereophila, eight letters which really make the difference…
KRETZSCHMAR ET AL. (Crete & Dodecanese, 2004): Ophrys cinereophila is common on all the islands.
2005: DELFORGE* (Europe North Africa & the Middle East). Ophrys cinereophila H.F. Paulus & Gack. And he made a note: ‘The more western reports of O. cinereophila (Peloponnese, Gulf of Corinth, Ionian Islands) often refer to O. perpusilla or a related taxon. Plants very similar to O. cinereophila but identified with difficulty as O. fabrella flower also in the Balearics.’
2006: BAUMANN ET AL. (Europe). I even don’t have to look it up; it certainly is Ophrys fusca ssp. cinereophila Paulus & Gack. And yes it is. Synonyms: O.cinereophila and O.thriptiensis. And they specified the area where it grows: Ionian Islands, the South of Greece, the South-Aegean, Crete, southwest Turkey and Cyprus. And actually those are the places where they grow in ‘large stands’.

Ophrys cinereophila, Alifantá © Jan van Lent 11-04-12 #422

2007: PEDERSEN H./FAURHOLDT N. (Europe). Also here I don’t have to look it up because KREUTZ 2004 had already this synonym for Ophrys cinereophila: Ophrys fusca ssp. cinereophila (H.F. Paulus & Gack 1998) N. Faurholdt 2002. ‘The distribution is eastern Mediterranean, but insufficiently known, as this plant was not recognised systematically until 1998. Reliable records exist from parts of mainland Greece, a number of Aegean islands, Cyprus, Syria and areas in western Anatolia. Personally, we have seen subsp. cinereophila in Chios, Crete, Rhodes, Samos and Cyprus.’
I know that they also visited the island so I can make only one conclusion: they couldn’t find Ophrys cinereophila on Lesvos…
2008: DELFORGE (Samos 2008) writes that O. cinereophila is a very local taxon on Samos and that it is the first mention for Samos of this Ophrys.
2009: ANTONOPOULOS (Greece). Ophrys cinereophila H.F. Paulus & Gack, 1998. In their schematic drawing of Greece everything is green in the Aegean, except Lesvos (Limnos & Tasos). ‘This species is found in the Cyclades, Dodecanese, east Aegean islands and on Crete; it also exists on Evvia. In central mainland Greece and the Peloponnese its distribution is unclear since it intermixes with the similar appearing Ophrys perpusilla.’ 

Ophrys cinereophila or perpusilla? Alifantá © Jan van Lent 11-04-12 #423

2010: DEVILLERS ET AL. (Lesvos): ‘In the early season of 2010, we (FB, LD) found only one plant in bloom, again in the same area, on 8 April………..Both in 1990 and in 2010, we found around the Olympos massif plants that had flowers of similar size to those of 0. cinereophila but were not entirely characteristic of the species. They were in mixed stations with other plants of the 0. fusca complex in the western periphery of the massif, above Achladeri (FB, LD, 11 April 2010), and on the northern slopes of the massif below Agiasos (PD, JDT, 13 April 1990). We have too few documents to allocate them.’
2011: PETROU ET AL.* (Greece). I’m always a little bit afraid to look in the register of their book (which I really like) because you never know which orchid became in the meantime another genus (see Blog 19 & 20). I’m lucky this time, Ophrys cinereophila is in their opinion Ophrys fusca subsp. cinereophila (Paulus & Gack) Faurholdt. DISTRIBUTION: ‘A taxon of the eastern Mediterranean, distributed from Greece to Syria(well, I hope so with this civil war going on there); it occurs in central Greece, The Cyclades, the Dodecanese and Crete.’
2012: TAYLOR (Chios). Ophrys cinereophila Paulus & Gack is widespread and frequent throughout Chios.

Ophrys cinereophila, Alifantá © Jan van Lent 21-03-13 #209

BOTTOM-LINE: I think that Ophrys cinereophila had and has a hard life on Lesvos. Up from Alifantá I found since 2010 maybe 20 plants, this year 6 plants, and that is really not the same as ‘large stands’, or ‘frequent’ from the other Aegean islands. So I suppose that Lesvos is the most northern Aegean island where O. cinereophila exist. And this directly throws up the question: does Ophrys perpusilla also exist on the northern Aegean islands instead of or together (Lesvos) with Ophrys cinereophila? Or is Ophrys cinereophila slowly, slowly fading away from Lesvos?

Jan van Lent, Lesvos, 2-4-2013

Not Fade Away, Rolling Stones 1964.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dZSOXZcQfQ

Or the original song by Buddy Holly & The Crickets 1958.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRlOI3N7Hao

Ophrys cinereophila, Alifantá © Jan van Lent 21-03-13 #238

*DELFORGE and PETROU ET AL. noted in their list of synonyms: O. ‘cinereophila-fusca’ Paulus & Gack nom. prov.! Nom. prov. stands for ‘nomen provisorium’: a temporary name. PETROU: ‘A name that has not been effectively published, but is used provisionally by many people when referring to a taxon, until the correct name is defined’. Well, the correct ‘official’ name is published in IPNI[1] and KEW’s WCSP[2]:

Ophrys cinereophila H.F. Paulus & Gack 1998 is a basionym[3] of:
Orchidaceae Ophrys fusca Link subsp. cinereophila (Paulus & Gack) Faurh. Orchidee (Hamburg) 53(3): 345 (2002). Faurh = Faurholdt. N., because he put fusca and subsp. in between Ophrys and cinereophila.
And a basionym of: Orchidaceae Ophrys subfusca (Rchb.f.) Hausskn. subsp. cinereophila (Paulus & Gack) Kreutz Orchidee (Hamburg) 57(1): 102. 2006  Kreutz = C.A.J. Kreutz, because he put ‘sub’ before fusca.

It’s sometimes hard work to get your name (as author) behind an orchid…

Habitats: Lambou Mili to Aqueduct & Kafkares, Palios.

Orchis lactea, Lambou Mili > aqueduct, © Jan van Lent 12-03-13 #139

Orchis lactea Poiret 1798.
SYNONYM:
Neotinea lactea (Poiret 1798) Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase 1997.
The Orchis tridentata-group, on Lesvos Orchis tridentata and Orchis lactea, but maybe also Orchis conica and Orchis commutata. 

HUNTING: It can be Greek to (synonym for: seem strange to) go out in the Orchid Paradise when the chance to get wet is almost 100%. But after days of heavy rains you sometimes have to take your chance if you want to go out and photograph Orchids when it is dry, even though it will be just for a few hours. So on the 12^th I jumped into my car and drove quickly to Lambou Mili – in the centre of Lesvos – to continue photographing a series of Pseudophrys (among others the new Ophrys sancti-isidorii – see blog 18) next to a parking spot in the pine forest just before the old village itself. After shooting them I decided to walk (with complete camera equipment) to the entrance of the track leading to the old Roman Aqueduct, because the sun was shining, the birds were singing and everywhere you looked I saw masses of beautifully coloured Anemones. So maybe there are also some early orchids to shoot, I thought bearing in mind that in this habitat I found in recent years Ophrys umbilicata, leucadica, sitiaca, pelinaea, leochroma, minutula, Orchis morio picta, lactea and papilionacea.

Orchis lactea, Lambou Mili > aqueduct, © JvL 12-03-13 #135, #140, #142.

HABITAT: Coming into the fields leading to the aqueduct and walking down hill I saw tens of Orchis lactea, the Milky Orchid, flowering between the olive trees, no sign of others – or let alone Pseudophrys yet. So bearing in mind the phrase ‘first come first served’ I decided to work on the Milky Orchid. When I almost reached the aqueduct an enormous bang shuddered through the valley, I looked up (normally I look down, kneel down or I lie down) and saw that the sky was completely black. (I should have seen that before because the existing light was quickly fading away and I had to open my lens more and more and revalue the iso-rating). So I grabbed my equipment (I had already once had a not so pleasant thunder & lighting experience up from Agiasos – see Blog 13 ‘Just A Forest’) so I started running up hill. Well, too late; the first very big raindrops were already hitting me & my camera. In short: before I had reached my car I was soaking wet and my camera still dry. But I had my shots of those very beautiful, just opening and fresh Orchis lactea.

Orchis lactea, Lambou Mili > aqueduct, © JvL 2-04-12 #040   

RESEARCH: Until recently I was quickly done with my research on the Milky Orchid, because ‘everybody’ agreed on the morphological appearance, the name, date and author of Orchis lactea Poiret 1798. But ‘things’ are maybe changing because in 1997 R. M. BATEMAN, PRIDGEON & M. W. CHASE reshuffled a lot of species in the genera Aceras, Anacamptis, Neotinea, and Orchis (see also blog 19 ‘Heroes’, Orchis papilionacea). But apparently not everybody was so enthusiastic about this genetic-approach, because until 2007 the authors below did not change the species generic names. So let’s have a quick look at the history of the Orchis lactea name since 1980:

SUNDERMANN (1980): Orchis tridentata ssp. lactea (Poir. 1798 p.sp.) Rouy 1912 and var. albiflora (Macchiati 1881 p.lus.).
KREUTZ (Türkei 1998): Orchis lactea Poir. 1798.
KREUTZ (Rhodos, Karpathos 2002): Orchis lactea Poir. 1798.
KREUTZ (Cyprus 2004): no Orchis lactea on Cyprus.
KRETZSCHMAR ET AL., (Crete & Dodecanense 2004): Orchis lactea.
In their chapter HYBRIDS they show a photograph of Orchis lactea x Orchis tridentata, taken on the 13^th of April 2000, so quite early for being O.tridentata and quite late for being O.lactea.
DELFORGE (2005): Orchis lactea Poiret, synonym: Neotinea lactea (Poiret) BPC 1997*. Delforge made an Orchis tridentata group with Orchis lactea, Orchis conica, Orchis tridentata, Orchis commutata, Orchis ustulata and Orchis intacta. Looking at his O.conica I see a lot of resemblance with KRETZSCHMAR’s Orchis lactea x Orchis tridentata. And going through all my lactea and tridentata photographs I found those pictures taken on the 10^th of May 2006 (too late for lactea) below Sanatorio (Agiasos).

Orchis conica? Sanatorio Agiasos © JvL 10-5-2006 #7667

BAUMANN et al. (2006) Orchis lactea Poir.
But they also have Orchis lactea ssp. conica (Willd.) Kreutz, which is of course in their opinion a synonym of Orchis lactea and they described Orchis lactea var. conica (Willd.) H.Baumann & R.Lorenz, so from the authors themselves; a very surprisingly new taxon which is not yet clearly separated.
By the way: as a synonym they also have Neotinea lactea (Poiret) BPC 1997*.
KARATZÁ (2007): Orchis lactea Poir. And surprisingly: Orchis tridentata var. commutata, in the Mt.Olympos area, above 600 meters.
CLAESSENS, J. & J. KLEYNEN, (2011): Neotinea lactea (Poiret) BPC 1997*.
PETROU ET AL. (2011): Neotinea lactea (Poiret) BPC 1997*, synonym: Orchis lactea Poiret and Neotinea commutata (Todaro) R.M. Bateman.
TAYLOR (2012): Orchis lactea Poir. 1798.

Orchis lactea or Orchis fetanea? Kafkares > Palios, © JvL 12-03-10 #040

So we have only SUNDERMANN who wrote O. tridentata ssp. lactea; 7 orchidologists who go for Orchis lactea and two who adapted BPC*’s 1997 lactea  switch from  Orchis to Neotinea.

The three species side by side, © JvL: O. lactea 2-4-12 #003; O. conica 10-5-2006 #7654; O. tridentata 26-4-11 #040.

BOTTOM-LINE: Two years ago I was (on the same date) hunting orchids on the road to Palios, as I approached the Kafkares habitat where I found the year before a lot of Orchis morio and Orchis lactea. Now this habitat was full of cows because some farmers have the habit to put all their livestock – goats, sheep, cows, calves and bulls – into ‘waste’ land, thus: nature. I’m not so afraid of the bulls but if cows have small calves they can mercilessly raise their horns at you. And they eat and trample of course MY orchids into the ground. But I start really looking under and IN the bushes and oh yes, there they were: Orchis lactea. So cows, sheep, milk and Milky Orchids can merge together. And maybe, one day, there will be a new orchid on Lesvos: Neotinea fetanea.

 Kafkares, © JvL 12-3-2010 #068, habitat Orchis lactea and Orchis picta.

Jan van Lent, Lesvos, 18-3-2013.

* BPC 1997 stands for ‘genes approved and authorized’ by R. M. BATEMAN, PRIDGEON & M. W. CHASE 1997’, but is much shorter. Maybe I’m even going to make a stamp of it.

‘No Milk Today’ by the ‘famous’ Greek singer Vassilikos (2011).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ4HKWl1wRA

And for people who wish to see the original: ‘No Milk Today’ – Herman’s Hermits 1966.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdw4Ed2sR9c

Latest ‘news’: Himantoglossum robertianum forever vanished (dug up) from Eftalou. 

Himantoglossum robertianum in Eftalou, © JvL 7-04-12 #042

Ex Himantoglossum robertianum in Eftalou, © JvL 19-03-13 #012

Habitat: Palios.

Orchis papilionacea, Kafkares, Palios, © JvL 2-03-2013 #063.

Orchis papilionacea (ssp. papilionacea) Link 1799 or
Anacamptis papilionacea (L.) R. M. Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase 1997.
Or/and:
Orchis papilionacea L ssp. heroica (E.D. Clarke) H. Baumann 1986.
Anacamptis papilionacea L ssp. heroica R. M. Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase 1997.

Orchis papilionacea, Kafkares, Palios, © JvL 2-03-2013 #051

REMARKS: Okay, papilionacea you think. Yes, I know, the Butterfly Orchid looks still very straightforward but there are some changes in the air! Some orchidologists are writing these days Anacamptis papilionacea instead of Orchis papilionacea. Again, a name change, yes, but this time more radical. This is home swapping from one genus to another! Why is this necessary? For almost 200 years, from 1799 until 1997, all biologists, orchidologists and Orchis papilionacea itself were very happy with the genus name Orchis inside the big Orchidaceae family. But now, it should be Anacamptis papilionacea (L.) by R. M. Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase?

HUNTING: You do not have to hunt for papilionacea because you can find them on the whole island. Moreover, it is difficult to miss them; between March and May you almost stumble over them. The earliest Orchis papilionacea species I discovered was in the middle of February in the neighbourhood of Palios, the most northeastern part of Lesvos (see Blog 3. ‘The Romans are still here!’). Now I went there on the 2^nd of March, but in 2011 I was already there on the 21^st of February and on that date O. papilionacea, O. morio s.l. and Dactylorhiza romana were doing the Miss Orchid 2011 beauty contest, finally won by miss Dactylorhiza romana. This time it cost me a lot of effort just to find THREE flowering Butterfly orchid on those habitats and Orchis morio s.l. was very NOT around. And except for my two ‘old pals’ Dactylorhiza romana behind the rotten trunk, they were also not around in such numbers as they were two years ago. So after all this is maybe not such a very early orchid season? (Another remarkable observation: there was not ONE O. papilionacea around on the 1^st of March 2010, only Dactylorhiza and Orchis morio s.l.).

Orchis papilionacea, Kafkares, Palios, © JvL 2-03-2013 #040

Orchis papilionacea, Kafkares, Palios, © JvL 21-02-2011 #173

RESEARCH: In the opinion of many orchidologists, the Orchis papilionacea on Lesvos are Orchis papilionacea ssp. heroica. So let’s read some Heroic Butterfly history to see where it all went ‘wrong’.
SUNDERMANN (1980): Orchis papilionacea Link 1759 ssp. papilionacea. Okay.
KREUTZ, ‘Die Orchideen der Türkei’, (1998): Orchis papilionacea Link 1759 ssp. papilionacea in the northern region of Turkey and papilionacea ssp. heroica in the South-west Mediterranean region. Ah, was it this sentence where it all comes from? Some orchidologists believe that all the eastern Greek islands are in the southeast, opposite the Turkish south-west Mediterranean coast! However, Lesvos is not! It is almost a part of Çanakkale and Balikesir, bordering on the northern region of Turkish Anatolia, where also the name ‘heroica – heroic’ came from: Troy. I think that if you go searching in the whole province of Çanakkale you will find BOTH AND Orchis papilionacea ssp. papilionacea AND O. papilionacea ssp. heroica. As I did on Lesvos.
KREUTZ (1998): O. papilionacea ssp. heroica has ‘a shorter and wider egg-shaped inflorescence, besides bigger flowers and a rather, broad egg-shaped, light pink coloured lip.’
‘O. papilionacea var. papilionacea has a looser inflorescence, smaller flowers and a rather small, reddish violet coloured lip with the edges sideways raised.’
KREUTZ (2002) in ‘The Orchids of Rhodes and Karpathos’: only Orchis papilionacea ssp. heroica  on Rhodes and Karpathos (because those are south-eastern Greek islands – JvL) and Orchis papilionacea ssp. schirwanica (Woronow) Soó 1927 on one habitat in the northeast of Rhodes.
KREUTZ (2004): ‘The Orchids of Cyprus’: the reddish-violet Orchis caspian Trautvetter 1873 is exclusively found on Cyprus, and Orchis collina, but no Orchis papilionacea or heroica. This Caspian Butterfly Orchid is also found on only one habitat in the south of Cyprus.
KRETZSCHMAR et al. (2004) in ‘Orchids Crete & Dodecanese’ mentioned Orchis papilionacea ssp. heroica (because this is the South-east Mediterranean region – JvL) and Orchis papilionacea ssp. alibertis G. & H. Kretzschmar, a ‘tall, lanky plant with few flowers, in its appearance resembling a very slim Orchis papilionacea ssp. rubra. Lip of the flower clearly smaller than in O. papilionacea ssp. heroica, around 10cm in diameter, edge of lip directed upwards, thus the lip is spade-like’. And: ‘Number of flowers on the spike minimal.’

O. papilionacea ssp. alibertis? Moria. © JvL 5-03-2010 #118

DELFORGE (2005) divided the Orchis papilionacea group into 3 species: Orchis cyrenaica from Libya, the Mediterranean Orchis collina and Orchis papilionacea: Mediterranean and eastern: ‘North to the foothills of the Alps and east to the Caspian Sea.’ And under the synonyms I find also Anacamptis papilionacea (L.) R. M. Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase. Delforge describes 6 varieties with 2 variants, no subspecies at all:‘alibertis’; ‘heroica’; ‘bruhnsiana’; ‘grandiflora’; ‘messenica’; ‘papilionacea’ with variants ‘rubra’ and ‘vexillifera’.
BAUMANN ET AL. (2006) had already Orchis papilionacea L ssp. heroica (E.D. Clarke) H. Baumann 1986 on his name as author but he is still eager to split this poor species up into 15(!) different taxa. Let’s read their register and shiver: O.papilionacea L ssp. papilionacea; O. papilionacea ssp. alibertis G. & H. Kretzschmar; O. papilionacea L ssp. balcanica H. Baumann & R. Lorenz; ssp. palaestina H. Baumann & R. Lorenz; ssp. grandiflora (Boiss.) H. Baumann; ssp. expansa (Ten) Guadagno; ssp. schirwanica (Woronow) Soó; ssp. rubra (Jacq.) Malagarriga. This were just the subspecies, and for the variations: — var. alibertis (G. & H. Kretzschmar) P.Delforge; — var. bruhnsiana Gruner; var. cyrenaica (Durand et al.) P. Delforge; –var. grandiflora Boiss.; –var. messenica Renz; –var. morgetiana H. Baumann & R. Lorenz.
So I don’t have to make a list of SYNONYMS in this blog, more room for photographs…Very noteworthy is that also in their opinion Anacamptis papilionacea is just a synonym for Orchis papilionacea L ssp. papilionacea…So they thought about it and rejected this new family name! Yeah, because otherwise they lose their names as authors behind 5 papilionacea taxa; otherwise they all will have R. M. Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase as authors.
KARATZÁS (Lesvos 2007): Orchis papilionacea ssp. heroica and ssp. heroica var. alba. Greeks just love their own heroic history…

Orchis papilionacea, Karava. © JvL 5-03-2010 #020

PETROU et al. (2011): Anacamptis papilionacea (L.) R. M. Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase. Ah, back to just papilionacea and they agree on the name change from Orchis to Anacamptis. But: ‘The species show great variability and a lot of local, possibly habitat-dependent, forms that have been treated by various authors alternately as subspecies, varieties or forms, often without sufficient evidence, creating great confusion.’ And: ‘Delforge (2005) reduces all these subspecies to varieties (yes, that was a clever move of Delforge, another 4 orchids on his name – JvL), we tend to agree, since we believe that their differences are not important enough, and most of them are probably local, habitat-dependent variants.’
Actually, I tend to agree too, because after going through all my papilionacea photographs between 2007 and 2013 – and I clearly see all the different varieties - I cannot put a determinative name on them, not even on heroica, not even just for one day…

TAYLOR, M.: (on Chios, Inouses & Psara’, 2012): Orchis papilionacea var. heroica L., (E. D. Clarke) P. Delforge 2011. Back to testicles* and heroes again…

BOTTOM-LINE: So Orchis papilionacea should now be Anacamptis papilionacea (L.) R. M. Bateman, Pridgeon & Chase? Because they rearranged Orchis and put 11 Orchis members in the genus Anacamptis in which, until now, only the solitary Anacamptis pyramidalis was living? And Orchis morio is now also Anacamptis morio, and which orchids more? Palustris, elegans, laxiflora, picta, boryi, coriophora, fragrans, collina and sancta…Moreover, by doing so they put their names in one big swap behind 11 Orchis taxa… brilliant! And also Kretzschmar et al. (2007) are swapping around with species and genera: ‘Within orchids in particular, it was found that two groups of species, up to now belonging to the genus Orchis, in fact belong to the genera Anacamptis or Neotinea, whereas only one species of the genus Aceras needs to be integrated into the genus Orchis.’
My God, all those name changes! Just because some species in the genus Orchis don’t want to intermingle with other members in the genus? Only with Serapias? Or are there other very important reasons – which I don’t know yet – for all these genus changes?Come on Orchid heroes Delforge, Baumann and Devillers-Terschuren: don’t let this pass unpunished, do something! Chase them, ignore them or – on my part – make up a subgroup or so, problem solved!
Oh, TYTECA & KLEIN (2008) did that already when they split the genus Orchis into four genera: Herorchis, Androrchis, Orchis s.str. and Odontorchis! PETROU (2011) made a remark on those ‘proposals’: ‘(it is) a view that has not met any acceptance.’ At this moment, my view on this whole genera name swapping matter is the same: it does not (yet?) meet any acceptance in my mind! Because subsequently I have to rename over 10,000 photographs in my computer… So come on; there are much more sensible things to do in life, let us hold on to Orchis papilionacea Link 1799… flowering from February until the middle of May. Piece of cake!

Pink Orchis papilionacea, Tombes, Palios. © JvL 12-03-2010 #152

Jan van Lent,Lesvos, 8-03-2013

* The name Orchis is derived from the Greek word ‘ópxis’, meaning testicles, in reference to the two ovoid tubers of the plants.

David Bowie with Queen, after the death of Freddy Mercury 1992: ‘Heroes’.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JOvgfOkxgQ&playnext=1&list=PL584D6948A536FD59&feature=results_video

or in 1977:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=25asv1xzYEo&list=PL584D6948A536FD59

Tribute to David Bowie (1947-2016): Lady Gaga 2016:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aw_sZvauCw