FLORA - ISTRIAN SERAPIAS 2014

IIstrian serapias
Serapias istriaca Perko,
Orchid Family (Orchidaceae)
 
 
Though most numerous in tropical areas and best known as air plants (epiphytes) –plants growing on other plants, mostly trees – in tropical areas and best known epiphytes, the orchidaceae or orchids  are also vastly spread as geophytes  in temperate areas of Earth: in Europe there grow about  50 genera with at least 500 species. One of the most unusual genera is for sure serapias (lat. Serapias) spread in about 20 species and subspecies throughout south Europe to Asia Minor. By the number of species (about 80) and the density of populations the Istrian peninsula counts among the richest orchid habitats in Europe. There is a real paradise of Orchidaceae in the most southern part of Istria called Cape Kamenjak. The area is also a classic founding of the endemic Istrian serapias (Serapias istriaca) described in 1997.
This orchid grows up to 30 centimetres high. The stalk is in lower part greenish and towards the top purple and the flowers are dark grey-violet to purple, with darker veins and gather into inflorescence, composed of three to six flowers. On the flower especially prominent is the hanging front part of the lip (epichilum), up to three centimetres long and in central part covered by long, bright hairs. The outer leaves of the perianth form a helm-like structure.
Istrian serapias blossoms in May and June on the meadows and in bushes in the south of Istria. They grow in smaller groups with a number of other kinds of orchidaceae with whom they often interbreed. In Croatian flora there grow about ten species of the genus serapias. 
Named after the invented God Serapis, whose mission was to connect two great cultures after the defeat of Egypt by Alexander the Great (in the 3rd century B.C.), the genus serapias attracts pollinators by the look of potential shelter for laying eggs.  The pollination of serapias is actually based on the temperature difference between the inner part of the flower and its surrounding: attracted by the warmth from the dark inside of the “helm” the insects enter into the flower looking for shelter and thereby pollinate it.
Istrian serapias is a species strictly protected by law.
 
 Sanja Kovačić