[Alisdair]

Lovely pictures, Ori - very rare at this end of its distribution, too. (That's to say in the west of Ireland....)

[Rafa]

Here in Spain N. maculata is very common you can find in pinewoods, quercus woods...
Jth, what a luck! I learn the asimbiothic culture with Svante Malmgren, and its really difficoult to have success, so it seems you have in the soil the fungus that decompose the seed casing.

[John]

Ori, how many plants were there, you may be implying that you found just this clump?

[Fleur Pavlidis]

A little bee orchid we found at Rhamnous on the east cost of Attica. Is my identification as Orphys tenthredinifera correct? Have you seen the book on Greek orchids by Nikos & Maria Petrou? It's in Greek but the photos are great.

[John]

Yes it must be O. tenthredinifera.

[JTh]

Both the Ophrys and the book look interesting, Fleur. I don't know the book, but I see that it is available also in English ( it is rather pricey, though, the least expensive one I saw at this website: http://www.koeltz.com/product.aspx?pid=203155, where you can get it for 79 €).
I have another book on Ophrys: 'The bee orchids of Greece - the genus Ophrys' by Zissis Antonopoulos (from Mediterraneo Editions, there is also a Greek version of it), which has lots of very good photos as well. Your Ophrys looks very much like those  described here as O. tenthredinifera group, which consists of 5 species, O. dictynnae, leochroma, ulyssea, villosa and bombyliflora. I don't know how valid these species are, in the book 'Ophrys: The bee orchid of Europe' by H.Æ. Pedersen & N. Faurholdt, they say that 'In our opinion, however, the variation dos not support a systematic (sub)division of the species' (except that they have O. bomyliflora as a separate species).

[Rafa]

I love to paint orchids!, here are a couple of watercolours I did of O. tenthredinifera

[Alisdair]

Wow!!
How vividly you have the textures of their lips, Rafa!

[JTh]

Absolutely wonderful!

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Thank you, John, for the confirmation and Rafa for the lovely painting.
Jorun, Orchids of Greece is available in Greek for 60 Euros from the publisher EEPF (The Greek Society for the Protection of Nature) http://www.eepf.gr/books . No sign of an English version on the web site.

[Ina]

I saw this robust Himantoglossum robertianum the other day. well at leat I hope I got the name correct. It's not as beautiful as the other prchids but noone can argue that it is impressive.

[JTh]

Thank you, Fleur, for the Greek link.
Your Himantoglossum (yes, it looks like a H. robertianum, although I have never had a chance to see it 'live'), is really impressive, Ina.

[Ina]

I found it in a really unexpected place... next to our town homehospital there is a forest and there were many of them growing!!

[John]

It is a most impressive orchid and can occasionally be much more colourful. It also has a strong sweet scent which is why on occasion I have seen it in vases in various places in Greece sometimes in huge quantities. I believe it is also heavily targeted for salep in Turkey as it has some of the largest tubers.

[John J]

Several years ago while my wife was still working as a Primary School teacher in the Cyprus state system one of her colleagues held a lesson on nature. She asked the children to bring in examples of wildflowers. One of them turned up with a large orchid, bulb and all saying that they had lots of them growing opposite their house. At the end of the lesson the teacher threw it into the waste bin in the staff room along with the other, by now, dead flowers. My wife rescued it and brought it home. It was what I know as a Barlia robertiana and we planted it in a wild part of our property, more in hope than expectation. The following year up it came and it has done so every year since. Now it appears to have undergone a name change, though I believe it is more accurate to say it has reverted to an old name. Am I right in thinking it was once called Himantoglossum robertianum before becoming Barlia, via a couple of other changes?