Never before I had seen an apochrome spider-orchid. Now I have encountered this special plant for the first time in the beginning of May at the Northern edge of lake Garda. She has three flowers. At her side is another Ophrys spegodes f. albiflora with a more rounded lip, surrounded by about ten plants with the common hues of a brown-reddish lip, most of them already withering.
The apochrome form of Ophrys sphegodes seems to be more rare than with Ophrys holoserica. Karel Kreutz mentions four places in France and two in Germany in his paper about Apochrome Ophrys-Varianten van Midden-Europa” (1997).
In the Northern Italian region of Trentino, the spider orchids have lips which are are sometimes more rounded, sometimes more elongate.
