The O.papilionacea group is a small and highly distinct collection of orchids that cannot be easily mistaken for any other. It consists of just three species, O.papilionacea itself, O.cyrenica and O.collina but although they share a family resemblance and configuration, they would not be confused. Interestingly, although O.papilionacea is an enthusiastic hybridizer, particularly with the O.morio group, it has very rarely been noted to cross with its closest relatives.
Unfortunately, whilst it may be comparitively easy to identify a plant as being a member of this species, determining exactly which variety or variant within this species is a much more problematic process. In truth it would be a brave botanist who would ever bet his mortgage on the certain identity of any of them.
O.papilionacea must be considered polymorphic and as such, formal recognition of forms and varieties becomes a somewhat arbitrary process. Differences largely occur in flower size and pattern or colour but there are simply too many exceptions and regional anomalies to give hard and fast descriptions but here goes :-
v.Heroica is named after the heroes of the Trojan war and fittingly is endemic to Greece apart from a small diaspora that settled across the Aegean in Anatolia. This variety was in fact first described in 1812 from the archeological site of Troy. It is a sturdy, dense flowered plant with a large lip very reminiscent of v.grandiflora except that the neck of the lip is markedly less flared and gives the flower a round shouldered appearance when compared to the square-shouldered look of "grandiflora". These two varieties have overlapping ranges and must undoubtedly produce intermediates. All the photographs here are from the Aegean and date from the end of March.
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