236 NATIVE BRITISH ORCHIDACE^ 



4. Ophrys APIFERA Huds. 

 Pis. 56 B, 57, 58. Bee Orchid 



Tubers two, ovoid or globose. Stem 2-4 dm., solid, round, somewhat sinuous, 

 glabrous, often stout. Leaves oblong-lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, keeled, many- 

 Served, glabrous, paler and slightly glossy below, the lower obtuse, spreading, the 

 upper acute, more or less embracing the stem. Spike lax, flowers 2-8, moderately 

 large, father distant. Bracts lanceolate acute, the lower sometimes exceeding the 

 flowe'rs, the upper nearly equalling the buds. Ovary sessile, curved forward, not 

 twisted', linear, rather 3 -sided, glabrous, green. Sepals spreading, finally much 

 reflexed, oblong obtuse, petaloid, pale rose to bright violet-rose, rarely white, more 

 or less hooded at tip, with 3-5 green nerves, the mid-nerve pronounced. Petals 

 about half as long as sepals or less, linear with rolled-back edges (making them semi- 

 tubular), green or purple-brown, covered in front with whitish hairs. Lip 5-lobed 

 (the lobes strongly curved back out of sight behind the lip, so that in front view 

 it looks bag-shaped), velvety, red-brown or dark purple, with a broad glabrous 

 brownish or purplish collarette encircling the red-brown (or red) oval-shaped base 

 of the lip, and ending in two very short lobes at the angles below, the whole pattern 

 edged with yellow or white; there are often also two or three yellowish spots near 

 the apex of the lip, and sometimes an indefinite yellowish blotch on each side. The 

 upper side-lobes are long, tapering and triangular, cut out and turned back behind 

 the lip, forming also a densely hairy cone, glabrous on the inside surface, on each 

 side of the lip above; the lower side-lobes short, truncate, green-edged, reflexed, and 

 the mid-lobe prolonged into a rather long green glabrous moderately acute appendk, 

 turned up and concealed, Uke the other lobes, behind the lip. At the base of the 

 column on each side is a greenish obtuse dark-tipped loiob, like the eye of a snail. 

 Column long, green, at right angles to lip, its base forming a hemispherical chamber, 

 on the inside surface of which is the stigma. Rostellum with two separate pouches, 

 each enclosing a viscid disc with its attached pollinium. Anther with a long flexuous 

 beak. PoUinia yellow, pear-shaped; caudicles long, very slender, thread-like, flexible, 

 elastic, yellow. Seed-capsule large, long, oblong with prominent ridges. Seeds: 

 testa transparent, usually straight, nearly of equal width tliroughout; cells long, fairly 

 wide, striate with well-marked nearly parallel sometimes forked transverse strias, 

 closer and easier to see than in O. maculata (T. A. Dymes). 



The continental monographists agree in describing the petals as very short 

 (Schlechter says about 3 mm.) and triangular or nearly lanceolate in typical 0. apijera, 

 and tills is markedly so on the French Riviera, where they are shorter than the 

 column. In Britain the petals are usually much longer, about half as long as the sepals. 



