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Pictures of native Orchids
by Pascal Decologne
Aveyron, Aude, Lozère, Côte d'Or, Jura, Essonne, Seine et marne, Yvelines, Savoie, Sardinia (it), Gargano (it)
Space dedicated to enthusiasts of wild orchids in France :
The texts and photos of this site do not have a scientific or artistic pretension but aim to make better known the nature which surrounds us but which we sometimes know little about. All the photos are by the author of these lines and the engravings borrowed from old copyright-free works.
If you have arrived on this space, you probably know that our countryside (and sometimes our cities) are home to wild orchids. Often so discreet that we can pass by them without noticing them and that the discovery of a single individual will leave us perplexed as to the identification of the species. It is better to discover a station (a group of several individuals) to confirm an identification.
In France, many species of orchids measure 10 to 15 cm in stem height with flowers less than one centimeter in size, you can easily pass by without seeing them.
We will be content to admire them, sometimes to photograph them but never to pick them because they are for the most part rare and fragile. Flowers in vases or herbariums are obsolete! And if they exceptionally invite themselves into our gardens, it will be on their initiative. No need to attempt a transplant, it will be doomed to failure in almost all cases.
To know them, to name them, is also to love them, I hope to share my passion with you or exchange with you because your passion is worth mine! A contact form is available.
The presentation spaces are introduced by a short text relating to the species, its biotope, some discriminating elements as to identification. This will therefore not replace better documented guides , but in these books, the iconographic base is often reduced to 1 or 2 views which only partially correspond to your observations. The great variability of orchids cannot be synthesized with so few photos and I have often complained about this "indigence".
The objective is therefore to illustrate each species with a broad photographic base, representing both the type species and also many variants.
Identifying orchids is not a contest of the greatest number of ticks. You will sometimes come across amateurs who will swear to have seen all the species that you have yet to discover or to declare certain rare species common. Do not let this discourage you in your quest and remain humble before a disputed species: it is often a variety of the most common species or a dilemma that will not find an absolutely certain solution.
About sixty species of orchids will be presented: almost all the most common. Of the approximately 160 species in our territory, this will represent the majority or all of the discoveries you could make during a walk or over a season. The other species being either rare to very rare, or regional to very localized (and for some still absent from my inventory which certainly grows richer each year but still remains partial). For others, they are impossible to determine without the help of a few specialists.
The descriptions are basic but I hope understandable and sufficient.
Orchids love to cheat on their people, so don't be surprised sometimes to come across one outside of its normal biotope, in an area where it's not supposed to thrive, growing at an unlisted altitude and flourishing outside of it. its normal flowering period!
Click on the photos to access the gallery of the species.
The diversity of flowers in orchids:
one species, multiple aspects that can be confusing.
These variations are frequent in orchids and do not facilitate their identification when they do not lead to the multiplication of species for certain specialists.
It is thus necessary to know to keep reason when one discovers an atypical orchid and not to imagine that it is about a new species in order not to multiply the taxa unnecessarily. A species is generally created from the geographic isolation of an orchid population. Over the millennia, certain characters will diverge and isolation will lead to an exacerbation of some of them: the size, the color, the shape of the labellum in particular. It can also be an adaptation to the environment with a more or less humid, more or less acidic biotope compared to the original species. The flowering dates also shift...
A species will also reinforce its own characteristics if the pollinating insect(s) are unique and will not visit other orchid species. There will therefore be no hybridization and the characteristics will therefore develop more easily and quickly.
Herbariums and Old illustrations:
Before photography and whyoi not today also as an alternative, illustrations are the first tools of naturalists. Following my own photographs, you will find some old illustrations from the 16th century to the first half of the 20th century. Among the oldest representations, it will sometimes be very complicated to recWe can see in these naive and approximate drawings for some, our orchids as we know them. Unfortunately, it is just as complicated to search in herbaria for a way to identify our discoveries.
Among the significant works or the most representative illustrators of European terrestrial orchids, let us cite:
-Franz Bauer (1758-1840). Austrian but having worked at the royal botanical gardens of Kew Garden.
- Illustrated flora of Nice and the Maritime Alps (1868) byJean Baptiste Barla (1817-1896).
- Iconography of orchids from Europe and the Mediterranean basin (1929) byEdmond Camus (1852-1915).
-Claus Caspari (1911-1980), German illustrator.
-Jacobus Landwehr (1911-1996): Dutch author and illustrator of the 2-volume work Orchids of Europe (1977).
-Eliza Klopfenstein (1921-2018): Belgian illustrator.
Free illustration photos of orchids: The photographs presented are not downloadable but as they are not for sale either, I can provide files on request and free of charge. Tell me the desired views, the required definition and the use you want to make beforehand.
This site is a work in progress and will benefit from frequent updates.
Be indulgent ou demandants and don't hesitate to let me know about display problems on tablets in particular, the site is in principle designed to be displayed on PCs and tablets.