Plant 20-65 cm tall with 3-7(-12) flowers in a lax spike. Sepals whitish to rose-coloured or dark violet, less frequently green, (10-)12-17 × 6-8.5 mm, spreading to more or less reflexed. Petals shaggy, (3-)4-10 × 2.5-4.5 mm. Lip with brown to brownish olive-green ground colour on its central part, entire, widest at or above the middle, 11-15 × 13-19 mm, in (nearly) its whole length shaggy of fairly long, whitish to yellowish brown hairs along the margin; terminal point triangular to oblong (1.5-3 mm wide at base); mirror bluish grey with or without a pale border, with or (usually) without connection to the base of the lip. Stigmatic cavity 4-6 mm wide at base, brown to olive-green.
Subsp. crabronifera is endemic to a broad area along the Tyrrhenian coast of mainland Italy. There are many populations between Livorno and Rome, but further south (to around Salerno) it is rare and mainly coast-bound. Reports from Corsica should probably be referred to O. ×arachnitiformis. [Ita].
