Skip to main content
This species is accepted, and its native range is Central Medit.
A specimen from Kew's Herbarium

[O-EM]
Distribution

Central Mediterranean; mainly occuring in Italy, from the flood plain of the river Po south to Sicily. In the Balkans, it ranges from Istria in Croatia to Montenegro and also occurs on the Ionian island of Corfu. Reports from France seem referable to O. ×flavicans. [Gre, Ita, Sic,Yug]

General Description

Plant slender to relatively compact, 10-35 cm tall with 2-8 flowers in a lax spike. Sepals rose-coloured to (greenish) white, narrowly elliptic to (ob)lanceolate-oblong, 13-18.5 × 6-8 mm; dorsal sepal shallowly boat-shaped to nearly flat, more or less incurved, from the base reflexed. Petals violet to rose-coloured, narrowly oblong with flat margins, 8-12 × 2-4.5 mm, pubescent, spreading to slightly incurved. Lip with blackish brown ground colour, markedly saddle-shaped with recurved sides, entire, 12.5-19 × 14-17 mm, shaggy along the margin, velvety on the central part (except on the mirror); bulges absent; front edge emarginate, provided with a short, erect, awl-shaped to narrowly triangular point; mirror distinct, transversely elliptic to nearly square, placed on the distal part of the lip without connection to its base, shining greyish blue to greyish violet. Column acute, distinctly tapering towards the base (in side view); stigmatic cavity longer than wide and slightly wider than the anther, with dark, lateral, eye-like knobs at base.

Habitat

Usually in dry to moist, calcareous soil in full sunlight, from sea level to 1200 m altitude. Typical habitats include roadside verges, garrigue, olive groves and grassland as well as open places in forest and maquis.

[O-EM]
Habitat

Dry to moist, calcareous soil in full sunlight or light shade from sea level to 1200 m altitude. Typical habitats include garrigue, poor grassland, roadside slopes, open pine woods, fallow fields and pesticide-free olive groves.

Distribution

This species is almost universally distributed in the Mediterranean. It seems absent from Cyprus and is very rare in France and Crete – indeed, it has been recorded only a couple of times from Crete. [Aeg, Alb, Bal, Cor, Cre, Fra, Gre, Ita, Mal, Por, Sar, Sic, Spa, Tur; Ana, Mor, Tun]

General Description

Plant compact to slender, 5-50 cm tall with 2-15 flowers in a lax spike. Sepals dark green to pale green, often with reddish brown to purplish brown streaks, spots, or suffusion, elliptic to oblong, 6-10 × 3-5 mm; dorsal sepal distinctly boat-shaped, strongly incurved, from the base nearly parallel to the column. Petals yellowish green, weakly to strongly suffused with brown or red, elliptic to triangular-ovate with flat margins, 4-6 × 4-5 mm, velvety, recurved. Lip with light brown to (yellowish) green ground colour around the large mirror, straight with spreading to recurved sides, deeply three-lobed close the middle, 11-16 × 8-10 mm, strongly shaggy by a dense reddish brown hairiness along the margin (otherwise nearly glabrous); bulges absent, mid-lobe distinctly longer than the side lobes, emarginate; mirror distinct, covering almost the entire mid-lobe as one large patch, shining blue. Column rounded, not tapering towards the base (in side view); stigmatic cavity approximately as wide as long and approximately as wide as the anther, with lateral, dark, eye-like knobs at base.

Native to:

Greece, Italy, Sicilia, Yugoslavia

Ophrys bertolonii Moretti appears in other Kew resources:

Date Reference Identified As Barcode Type Status
Italy 20755.000
Wood, J.J. [211], Italy 38244.000
Wood, J.J. [221], Italy 38262.000
Cooper, J., Spain 41244.000
Norman, T., France 53549.000
Poland K000363976
Tineo [s.n.], Italy K000363975
Croatia K000363973
Italy K000363972
Heldreich [s.n.], Italy K000363974

First published in Quibus. Pl. Ital. 6: 9 (1823)

Accepted by

  • Dimopoulos, P., Raus, T., Bergmeier, E., Constantinidis, T., Iatrou, G., Kokkini, S., Strid, A., & Tzanoudakis, D. (2013). Vascular plants of Greece. An annotated checklist: 1-372. Botanic gardens and botanical museum Berlin-Dahlem, Berlin and Hellenic botanical society, Athens.
  • G.I.R.O.S. (2009). Orchidee d'Italia: 1-303. Il Castello srl, Italy.
  • Govaerts, R. (2003). World Checklist of Monocotyledons Database in ACCESS: 1-71827. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
  • Kühn, R., Pedersen, H.Æ. & Cribb, v (2019). Field Guide to the Orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean: 1-430. Kew Publishing, England.

Literature

Kew Backbone Distributions

  • Pedersen, H.Æ. & Faurholdt, N. (2007). Ophrys. The Bee Orchids of Europe: 1-297. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Herbarium Catalogue Specimens
Digital Image © Board of Trustees, RBG Kew http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Kew Backbone Distributions
The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2021. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/
© Copyright 2017 World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Kew Names and Taxonomic Backbone
The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2021. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/
© Copyright 2017 International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Orchideae: e-monocot.org
All Rights Reserved