Orchis italica
Written by Wednesday, 13 May 2009 00:00
"What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle -- oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!" Henry Ward Beecher
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Orchis italica (Family: Orchidaceae; common name: Naked Man Orchid; Italian orchid) - Life cycle Orchis italica is a common orchid species in meadows, phrygana as well as pine woods up to an altitude of 900 metres. Despite its name it is a typical Mediterranean species with a very extensive geographical area of occurrence. The basic colour of the flower is whitish pink or more rarely purple. The most interesting characteristic of this flower is its sepals which resemble humans with tails. Although this is supposed to be rather common in the Mediterranean, we could only find one flower which stayed there for a couple of days. The day after the whole plant was missing, which means that somebody removed it to decorate their house. Quite difficult to get a nice photo of it if you do not have a reflector with you. Using flash flattens the flower a bit while the no flash shots tend to produce a bit less detail than desired. Very tricky to take a photo of the side which is lit by the sun. One of the flowers which do not look impressive on its whole but when you start closing in, the texture and shape of it makes it the highlight of the field. Photos by Marina Parha and George J. Reclos Shooting Data: 1. Camera: Nikon D700 2. Camera: Nikon D700 3. Camera: Nikon D700 4. Camera: Nikon D700 |
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