Ophrys Apifera - Description

Description

Ophrys apifera grows to a height of 15–50 centimetres (5.9–20 in). This hardy orchid develops small rosettes of leaves in autumn. They slowly continue to grow during winter. Basal leaves are ovate or oblong-lanceolate, upper leaves and bracts are ovate-lanceolate and sheathing. The plant blooms from mid-April to July producing a spike composed from one to twelve flowers. The flowers have large sepals, with a central green rib and their color varies from white to pink, while petals are short, pubescent, yellow to greenish. The labellum is trilobed, with two pronounced humps on the hairy lateral lobes, the median lobe is hairy and similar to the abdomen of a bee. It is quite variable in the pattern of coloration, but usually brownish-red with yellow markings. The gynostegium is at right angles, with an elongated apex.

Read more about this topic:  Ophrys Apifera

Famous quotes containing the word description:

    God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)