On
finding an orchid with green lines on the side petals in Britain you would be
fairly confident that it is a Green-winged orchid (Anacamptis morio). However once you reach mainland Europe and head
south identifying the flowers pictured above becomes more difficult. The main
guide to European, north African and Middle Eastern orchids (Delforge 2005)
groups together 4 possible species; morio,
picta, champagneuxi, and longicornu,
in a species complex.
I
found the flowers pictured here in Turkey and it is likely that they are
Green-winged orchids that are slightly spindly in their growth because they are
growing in partial shade. With characteristics such as stature and leaf size
being influenced by growing conditions the main ways to differentiate the four
species are the dimensions of the different sections of the flowers. Delforge
adds that A. morio show more colour
variation than A. picta. The group of orchids I found had a lot of
colour variation ranging from almost white to dark pink-purple flowers; but
that does not in itself mean that they are A.
morio.
Sometimes
when plants are not easily distinguished the right question to ask is not what
species specific plants are but are all these species really separate species?
A few emailed conversations asking about confirming identification as a
Green-winged orchid led one person to suggest that sampling across Europe would
be likely to find that the four species are in fact one super-species – with
characteristics that vary on a continuum rather than characteristics that can
be separated.
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