Crimean Ophrys

Family Orchidaceae. It grows in the mountainous Crimea, in Western Transcaucasia, in Krasnodar Krai, in Central Europe and the Mediterranean. It occurs in open juniper and deciduous forests, on rocky slopes, in Crimea — on old screes and in limestone crevices; in the Caucasus — in Colchic relict humid forests of the lower coastal belt.

Plant 30 - 58 cm tall with nearly spherical tubers. Bluish-green leaves are gathered at the lower part of the stem; they are oblong-lanceolate, up to 9 cm long and 2 - 3 cm wide, tapered at the base. Inflorescence a sparse spike of 3 - 8 flowers. Bracts oblong-lanceolate, acute, equal to the ovary or slightly longer, green. Flowers up to 3 cm long, in pastel greenish-pink tones, sessile. Perianth segments spreading; outer whorl segments greenish outside, the median outer segment greenish inside with brownish-pink margins, the lateral outer segments with three veins, asymmetric and bicolored — pinkish in the lower half and green in the upper; inner whorl segments small, ligulate, yellowish or brownish, almost glabrous. The labellum is directed downward, up to 15 mm long, velvety, rounded-ovate, convex, entire, with a small green appendage at the tip, and at the base with two hairy nipple-like tubercles. It is dark purplish-brown with a bluish hairless mark of two longitudinal lines and one transverse line above, with darker bluish dots where the lines join. The stigma is concave; the rostellum is inconspicuous. The ovary is slightly twisted. Flowers in April - May.

It reproduces mainly by seed. The species' numbers are small and declining due to collecting flowering plants and habitat disturbance. All known localities of the species are protected; it is forbidden to collect or dig up the plants.