Bee Orchid Variation (Ophrys apifera var tilaventina). A distinctive variety of Ophrys apifera (The bee orchid). It has a restricted distribution in the wide river valleys of the Southern alps and nearby regions where it grows in grasslands formed on banks of gravel carried out of the alps by the torrents. transferred out of the alps.

The name 'tilaventina' refers to the Roman town Tilaventum on the river Tagliamento. However, the orchid has a much older name ‘purpurea' having been described in 1831 as Ophrys purpurea by Ignaz Friedrich Tausch (1793-1848).

In Erich Nelson’s Ophrys monograph it is noted as being the only putative intergeneric hybrid of Ophrys (with Serapias). In an attempt to link it with known orchid species it has also been known as Ophrys integra suggested as a hybrid between O.apifera and Cephalanthera rubra…two orchid general too far apart to hybridise. Treviso, Veneto, Italy June 2021