Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Pleione and Orchidaceae => Topic started by: SteveC2 on March 23, 2014, 05:02:59 PM
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Just back from a few days in Majorca which included plenty of time spent orchid hunting.
Spring has sprung early (temperatures last week 18-21; lovely!) and it really is amazing to see how green everything is as I'd only ever visited in May and September before.
After a dawn flight we popped down to a headland on the east coast which had been recommended to me and voila!
It always help when you find something good in the first few yards, in this case a Himantoglossum robertianum (AKA Barlia)
Within yards more Barlias appeared and as I went to photograph them I realised that I needed to watch my step as the ground was covered with bumble bee ophrys, (Ophrys bombyliflora). Their flowers were tiny, not so much bumble bee as ladybird in size.
What amazed me was where they were growing. Think of the poorest soil possible, thin, sandy just covering limestone, bone dry. I swear that I will never overwater my wintergreens again. (Until the next time ;D ;D)
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Only a few yards further on the Ophrys tenthredinifera appeared and my camera went into overdrive.
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Next morning we headed south to a reserve next to the coast and once again within yards of parking the car orchids started to appear.
Firstly a really early flowering pyramid, Anacamptis pyramidalis. Funny how in my part of the world white pyramids are something special, here it was difficult to find a pink one.
And before much longer the ground was once again covered with Ophrys bombyliflora.
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Two new species for me next, (Not a seasoned traveller I hasten to add!).
Orchis longicornu, which for some reason both my wife and myself found really difficult to photograph, and Ophrys bertolonii (aka Ophrys balearica). Once again growing in a few inches of soil above limestone.
Hiding under a bush I then spotted Ophrys fusca, one of the few during the week that had not finished flowering as I am told they have been open since November.
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Right next to a busy footpath, with dozens of people walking past yet remaining unmolested, (I'd like to think that this would happen at home but somehow I doubt it) we found more Ophrys tenthredinifera.
If I thought that these plants were growing in harsh conditions then my next discovery amazed me. Right on the southern tip of the island we found the "mosques blaves" the blue flies which seems an appropriate name for Ophrys speculum. Within twenty yards of the sea, baking.
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I know these next photos are not orchids but if you are a plant lover then some of the meadows in this area were breathtaking.
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A quiet day followed, but still time to find more tenthredinifera, once again growing in hard conditions. Ever thought of Ophrys as candidates for a crevice garden?
And look down on the one with the road and the car. We found several that had been run over or stood on by pedestrians taking evasive action.
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Time for a rest.
All this is harder work than finding the plants in the first place.
But a definite thumbs up for the SRGC picture resizer. Wish I'd found it ages ago.
More to follow later if you want. ???
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Very pleasant holiday, eh, Steve? The tiny bee orchids are so appealing - but I'm still lingering with the first photo, hoping for the scent to suddenly leap out of the screen!
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Funnily enough I didn't notice the scent of the barlias once during the holiday and we found them almost every day. possibly due to the wind, or the time of day, or the age of the flowers, I am not sure which? And it is not my sense of smell as every time I go into my greenhouse it hits me. (the scent not the greenhouse ;D ;D)
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Funnily enough I didn't notice the scent of the barlias once during the holiday and we found them almost every day. possibly due to the wind, or the time of day, or the age of the flowers, I am not sure which? And it is not my sense of smell as every time I go into my greenhouse it hits me. (the scent not the greenhouse ;D ;D)
Crumbs and tee hee !
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A wonderful series of images Steve!!!
The last time I was in Mallorca in Spring I spent most of my time looking upwards (bird watching) -now I realise what I was missing!
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I expected to see a whole lot more birds, and birders, but was told that we were slightly early for the spring migration. Did see a few interesting types at S'Albufera, but honestly I spent most of the time looking at the ground to avoid treading on orchids.
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Nature reserves in Mallorca were always fascinating places to visit. Strange that there seemed to be spent shotgun cartridges all over the places I visited! :(
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We were starting to get the hang of where to look now, poor rocky ground with broken vegetation so a quick search on Google Earth suggested a couple of likely venues.
The first produced more Ophrys and Barlias. No shotgun cartridges, but sadly too many flytippers.
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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.
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...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 ;D ;D
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.
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...and more
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And finally..
Now I can't wait for our natives to open. And with this weather the Early Purple Orchids will not be long.
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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!
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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!
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Lovely set of photos. Much more than I saw when I visited at the end of April a few back
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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!
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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.
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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.
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Steve,
what a wonderful holiday, thanks for sharing. :) :) :)