O. sicula is one of our most common and widespread Ophrys with a range from the borders of France right across southern continental Europe, north Africa and across the Mediterranean to the near East.
It does however seem to be absent from Spain and Portugal.
It can grow in enormous numbers and by virtue of this, is often overlooked in the search for the rarer orchids that share its habitat preferences. This is a shame because its not only a striking little plant, its also quite variable and can sometimes throw up some very interesting variants (photo 2 is a good example of this) .
In terms of identification, the key, as with O. phryganae, is to study its side on profile from which you will note that the lobe from stigmatic cavity to the inner edge of the margin is only gently rounded and
in some examples may appear virtually flat. With O. phryganae this area is noticeably humped and
gives the impression of a knobbly knee joint ! Photograph 7 illustrates this point very well and also highlights the relatively large stigmatic cavity as compared to O. lutea.
O. sicula tends to replace O. lutea in the eastern Aegean but elsewhere to the west there is a large overlap. The two are however easily separated, firstly by O. sicula's smaller size and secondly by its habit of holding its flowers horizontally out from the stem whereas the flowers of O. lutea are more pendulous and hang downwards.
The photographs are from Gargano, Crete, Chios, Peloponnese and Mt Hymettus and all date from the
month of April.
.