Pink sepals spread like wings behind a furry brown, yellow-marked lip that looks convincingly like an insect on the flower
Bee orchid — Ophrys apifera.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Bee orchid
Flowers June to July
Ophrys apifera — Orchidaceae
The bee orchid is the great mimic of the British flora: three spreading pink sepals like wings behind a furry, chestnut-brown lip patterned in yellow, the whole flower a convincing female bee. The deceit works in the Mediterranean, where male bees attempt to mate with it and carry off the pollen, but the right bee does not occur in Britain, so here the plant almost always pollinates itself. It is the county flower of Bedfordshire.
How to spot them
- ▸Flowers like a bumblebee on a stalk: a velvety brown, yellow-marked lip with a shining blue-grey speculum
- ▸Three broad pink or pinkish-white sepals spread like wings; two tiny green inner petals like antennae
- ▸A loose spike of two to ten flowers on a stem 15–45 cm tall, with a rosette of grey-green leaves
- ▸Chalk and limestone grassland, dunes, road verges, quarries and brownfield ground, June to July
- ▸Pollen masses on long stalks that swing forward and drop onto the plant's own stigma
How to know it
In Britain the right insect does not occur, so the flower nearly always pollinates itself
Bee orchid — its pollinia swing forward onto its own stigma.
Elsewhere the deceit works by pseudocopulation: males of a solitary bee try to mate with the lip
Bee orchid — Ophrys apifera.
Its epithet means 'bee-bearing', and its genus name is Greek for eyebrow
Ophrys apifera — the bee orchid.
County flower of Bedfordshire, at home on chalk downland, dunes, quarry floors and brownfield land
Bee orchid.
The orchid most often found colonising new road verges, roundabouts and industrial sites on lime-rich spoil
Bee orchid.
The shiny blue-grey patch on its lip is called the speculum, and imitates the reflection off a female insect's folded wings
Bee orchid — its British relatives are the fly, early spider and late spider orchids.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Orchidaceae; apifera means bee-bearing, from Latin apis; Ophrys is Greek for eyebrow
- •The Wildlife Trusts note that in Britain the bee orchid is self-pollinated because the right bee species does not occur here
- •Elsewhere in its range it is pollinated by pseudocopulation, males of solitary bees (Eucera species) attempting to mate with the lip
- •County flower of Bedfordshire in Plantlife's 2002 County Flowers survey
- •The shiny blue-grey patch on the lip is called the speculum
- •Other British members of the genus are the fly orchid (Ophrys insectifera), early spider orchid (Ophrys sphegodes) and late spider orchid (Ophrys fuciflora)
- •Colonies are short-lived and shift about; individual plants often flower once and die
- •Frequent on disturbed lime-rich ground, so it turns up on new verges, roundabouts and old quarries
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Bee orchid