With its deeply pink to purple colours in the sepals and petals and a deeply brown labellum, Ophrys bertolonii is one of the most intensely coloured Ophrys species. In Croatia, at the southern tip of Istria, Pavel Heger found a colour variety of Ophrys bertolonii – with an overall green appearance due to the remaining chlorophyll pigments. There are two characteristics which allow to address these plants as an “albiflora” form: 1) The typical marking at the lower end of the labellum is quite white. 2) The hairs at the edges of the labellum are white as well.
This rare plant demonstrates that “albiflora” forms of Ophrys species tend to retain chlorophyll – in contrast to the white flowering forms of Orchis or Anacamptis species. And there are distinct areas of the flower where chlorophyll is not retained as it is the case with the labellum marking of Ophrys bertolonii. Maybe these plants tend to be “white” in order to achieve a certain biological “albiflora” function – but the chlorophyll performance of the flower is still important and thus kept. Special thanks to Pavel for contributing to albiflora.eu!