Anacamptis pyramidalis

Orchid family. Grows in open, light, dry sparse forests closer to edges and clearings, in shrub thickets on alkaline soils; occurs rarely and usually in small groups. Known from Ukraine, in Estonia (Saaremaa Island), in Crimea, in the Carpathians (not recently found) and in the Caucasus. Outside the CIS - in Western Europe, Asia Minor and the Near East, North Africa, and Iran.

A tall plant whose stem may reach up to 65 cm in height. At its base there is a rosette of rather long (up to 25 cm) narrow leaves. There are also stem leaves with a well-developed stem-clasping sheath. The inflorescence is many-flowered, dense, pyramidal. Flowers with a purplish-red (more rarely pink or white) perianth, with a delicate fragrance. The outer perianth segments up to 7 mm long, the median of them with one vein, the lateral ones with two. The inner perianth segments are almost equal to the outer ones. The labellum (lip) is 6–9 mm long and 7–11 mm wide, its middle lobe about 4 mm long and 2 mm wide. The spur up to 1.4 cm long. The column is straight, whitish in the lower part and purple in the upper. The ovary is inferior, bent, not twisted. Flowers in late May–June (rarely in July). In winter the plant retains only a pair of almost spherical tubers.