If you are following my orchids posts (and not just skipping through) you already know that one, Dactylorhiza incarnata - a very nice specimen just beginning to flower:
But there's also news. Though I am not a hundred percent sure I think that this is Anacamptis pyramidalis (Pyramidal orchid - Hundswurz or Spitzorchis), just opening the first flower buds:
And last, but not least the first bee ophrys (Bienen-Ragwurz - Ophrys apifera):
While spider ophrys already is a very nice orchis, beautiful even, bee ophrys in comparison is just adorable.
And to put finally straight what I have written earlier on ophrys and their strange pollination strategy: although spider ophrys are named after spiders it is not them who pollinate them by trying to copulate with them; the official site of Lobau national park has put me straight on that one. Spider ophrys usually are pollinated by Andrena nigroanea (a bee genera quite unlike the well known honey bees) while bee ophrys, interestingly, usually use self-pollination. The only thing which was true of my original post obviously is that ophrys do not offer any nectar to insects pollinating them but fool them into believing that the flowers were potential sexual partners.
