Early-purple Orchid

Description:

Early-purple orchid (a.k.a. early spring orchid) is herbaceous perennial terrestrial orchid, with leaves grouped in basal rosette, and flowering stems 40-50cm tall. Stems regroup 10-20 purple flowers - in this colony, almost all flowers were purple, some of them slightly paler but speckled (Pic No 3). Each flower is about 2cm in diameter.

Habitat:

Found few large colonies along the walking trail, growing on alpine pastures and edges of forest (coniferous), in Jura mountain range, at about 1400m of altitude. The area where we found them is a highly protected zone of a Jura Natural Park - access highly restricted, and allowed few months per year.

Notes:

We have found another colony, some 400m further down the trail, with bit more diversity in colouring - some very pale rose flowers too (see my next spotting). And even though this species often produces spotted leaves, all plants we examined were without spots.