Epipactis sp.

[Jason Claxton]

Sorry O alba,if your thread has taken a bit of a sideways shift,theres still much that is relevant here.Thanks David and keenteen(Ive got loads of Orange Balsam nr me).Cheers Jason

[KeenTeen17]

Originally Posted by Jason Claxton

Sorry O alba,if your thread has taken a bit of a sideways shift,theres still much that is relevant here.Thanks David and keenteen(Ive got loads of Orange Balsam nr me).Cheers Jason

No its all relevant to the question in the thread really. All the points are helping to point to an ID in future of this species

[Jason Claxton]

Thats great news keenteen

[IanS]

Going back to the flower colouration here, our local helleborines were a mixture of really pale flowers and much darker more conventional flowers depending on the plant you were looking at. I was a bit confused to start with but later realised that they all were the same plant. Its obviously quite variable plant even within a group!

[ceterach]

Originally Posted by IanS

Going back to the flower colouration here, our local helleborines were a mixture of really pale flowers and much darker more conventional flowers depending on the plant you were looking at. I was a bit confused to start with but later realised that they all were the same plant. Its obviously quite variable plant even within a group!

Ian

You are right, I must admit that when I read Keenteen's comment about typical I did think much the same thing. In the Chilterns especially the redder form probably predominates but generally within any population there is a wide range of colouring (see my unfinished web page!!!!). I think the two pictures above show the middle of the range (is that OK as typical?).

[IanS]

hi John
Yes your page illustrates this very nicely! The very pale green ones make you think you are looking at a full flowered green helleborine but on closer inspection you realize that its the broad leaved one! The plants I was referring to above were local to Norwich. I have seen some in the Chilterns and they were fairly red as I recall.

[the young hunter]

Hi,

Broad-leaveds local to me only grow to around 7 inches tall under pine with little or no colouration, just pale green all over. It's made me think they could be the rarer viridiflora variety, though I'm unsure.... Didn't check them this year though.

Here's the same plant(s) from the Gallery:



Mike

[ceterach]

Hi Mike

I think this separation of varieties based on flower colour is a name collecting game (after all v. viridiflora merely describes it as a green-flowered variety) describing the extremes ends of a range of flower colour within a very variable species. You could have any number of named varieties within that range and eventually with the help of DNA analysis start giving the plants individual names!!!!!

The pictures on my web-site were taken within 50m of each other at Box Hill (Surrey) and show the range including v.viridiflora (!!!) with no colouration whatsoever and what I suspect would be classified by some as v.purpurea that the Harraps describe as rare but it might not be purple enough so I will call it v.almostpurpurea!!.

Why complicate nomenclature based on flower colour and just state that they show a complete range of colours from all green to deep purple. Of course if you found a population that was all green-flowered, that would be different because it would imply a stable characteristic.

So I suggest calling them all E.helleborine and enjoy the colour extremes.

By the way, I don't think your one can be v.viridiflora it looks to have a coloured hypochile.

All the best

[the young hunter]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply
I think you've definately got a point there and I tend to agree. I haven't had much experience of Broad leaved helleborines unfortunately (usually because they're not publisised as they're so common!) but from the ones I've seen variation in colour is indeed vast as well as lip shape, flower size, height, leaf shape and colour so probably best to lump them under the same bracket if DNA doesn't show much variation

Only really subsp./variation 'youngiana' which I know generates a lot of controversy and subsp. 'neerlandica' can be counted as being at least partly genetically different.

Now I look at it, the hypochile is indeed coloured, well done me

Mike