Lax-flowered orchid

Description

Anacamptis laxiflora (lax-flowered orchid, loose-flowered orchid, or green-winged meadow orchid) is a species of orchid. Wide distribution range in Europe and Asia as far north as in Gotland (Sweden). Tall plant, grows up to 60 cm high. Found in wet meadows with alcaline soil. Common in Normandy and Brittany (France), in United Kingdom represented only on Channel Islands, where it is called Jersey Orchid. Notable habitat is Le Noir Pré meadow in Jersey and several fields at Les Vicheries in Guernsey, where each year in late May early June can be observed mass bloom of these orchids. Anacamptis laxiflora is a species of Liliopsida first described by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, and given its simplified Asian name by RMBateman, Pridgeon and Mark W. Chase. Anacamptis laxiflora belongs to the genus Anacamptis, and the family Orchidaceae. Anacamptis is a genus of flowering plants in the orchid family (Orchidaceae); it is often abbreviated as Ant in horticulture. This genus was established by Louis Claude Richard in 1817; the type species is the pyramidal orchid (A. pyramidalis) and it nowadays contains about one-third of the species placed in the "wastebin genus" Orchis before this was split up at the end of the 20th century, among them many that are of hybrid origin. The genus' scientific name is derived from the Greek word anakamptein, meaning "to bend backwards". These terrestrial orchids occur on grasslands, limestone or chalk deposits, or on dunes in Eurasia, from the Mediterranean region to Central Asia. Except the pyramidal orchid (A. pyramidalis), all species of Anacamptis seem to form a clade around the green-veined orchid (A. morio). They have a diploid chromosome number of 32 or 36. A useful character for distinguishing Anacamptis from Orchis – where the green-veined orchid clade was formerly included is the basal fusion of the three sepals in Anacamptis. The few bigeneric hybrids are typically between closely related genera, in particular Serapias. Hybrids between the pyramidal orchid and the early purple orchid (Orchis mascula), found in Cumbria (UK) in 1997, proved short-lived because of the highly divergent genomic lineages of the parents.