Majorcan orchids

[SteveC2]

But the next venue came up with the jackpot.  I had been hoping to find Ophrys lutea all week and here it was, in large numbers, as well as massive numbers of all the other favourites.
The last photo is an Ophrys bombyliflora colony.  As this is the only Ophrys which I can rely on to bulk up in cultivation each year without a little help from me I was not surprised to see so many growing so close together.

[SteveC2]

...and that should have been it.  The last day was scheduled for shops and museums in Palma, (WHY??) but fate decreed otherwise.  If you walk past a bookshop and a copy of "Orchids of Castle Bellver" is in the window then you just have to accept that the gods want you to go orchid hunting!
And wow
An interesting castle, with spectacular views, and orchids so thick on the ground that to leave the footpath would have been a sin as you would have crushed so many.
Ophrys speculum was growing on the island in the car park, then into the woods for more Ophrys, the only flowering Serapias of the week. Orchis longicornu and Orchis tridentata (conica/ lactea?)
An excellent end to a wonderful week.

[SteveC2]

...and more

[SteveC2]

And finally..

Now I can't wait for our natives to open.  And with this weather the Early Purple Orchids will not be long.

[Maggi Young]

Wow, it was indeed a really successful week - thanks again for sharing Steve.
 Just to mention from this page - the little hairy chaps, as in pic srgc3 are delightful and what a strong colour in srgc7 and 8 - very nice!

[Tony Willis]

Steve

what a super report and lovely photographs.Glad you had such a successful week. Also glad to see you managed to put normal names on them!

[mark smyth]

Lovely set of photos. Much more than I saw when I visited at the end of April a few back

[Maggi Young]

So much depends on the season each year, doesn't it? Something I always bear in mind when enjoying someones talk on far flung places - there  can be huge temptation to get one's travelling  boots on - but then you realise that the photos being presented in the talk may represent the very best from twenty years of travel - and any one visit can be a sore disappointment!

[SteveC2]

Everyone, from waiters to taxi drivers told me that the weather in Majorca has been strange this winter.  No snow on the mountains, unseasonably warm, so it was no surprise to find the orchid season so advanced.
I had visited before in mid-May and seen the late Ophrys as well as Serapias and some Orchis, but the masses of blackened Ophrys rosettes, seed pods etc suggested that I had missed something special.  I think that early April would have been a safer time; certainly there were still plenty of flowers on the way, but other commitments meant it was mid-March or nothing.  I was worried that this might be too early until I saw Hans' barlia photographs on another thread.  Needless to say I am very happy that we went when we did.

[Anthony Darby]

Amazing photos. I was never there in orchid time. The worst place I came across for fly tippers was Kos. Every bend on some roads seemed to have the entire contents of a house dumped, with cyclamen and other autumn flowering gems bravely poking in between.

[Maren]

Steve,
what a wonderful holiday, thanks for sharing.