Visit of the Montenach natural reserve: Brice and JeanLux

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JeanLux

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I got in contact with Brice, a young french man, studying biology in Paris, through Slippertalk some time ago :) !!!!

We met again here on this thursday morning, because Brice was on holidays for a week, home in Lorraine, and we had agreed to visit some orchid related site! As Montenach is a village near the 3-border frontier France-Germany-Luxembourg, and has for the region a rather unique abundance of local orchids to be found on some of the slopes around, we decided to go there, even if it was still very early in the year to see a large part of the present species in bloom!

So, most of the species were still not showing up at all, or were in very low foliage, or in early spikes, but we found a relatively huge number of plants belonging to one/ a few species! We could identify some, but the most visible, Orchis maculata?, had such variations in foliage and inflorescence, that, even with our orchid bucklets, we were not comfortable for identification :eek: !

Maybe, some of you can give us more details!

here some pics:

(Liparis ovata) spiking, no it is Listera ovata, thanks Rob!:


an orchid purpurea ready to start its blooms' explosion!


one of the few purpureas already showing some bloom:


A view of the first in bloom:


And here some pics of what we found labelled as orchis maculata, but where we were not sure at all, if all of them were maculta, or variants of this species, oe simply diff. species, esp. because of the differences in compactness of blooms, colors of the stems, and, above all, the differences we met for the foliage: some green, others mottled! :eek: !


the whole plant, for foliage:


green foliage!


bloom closer-up:


buds:


with primula:


Brice, shooting pics, shown in the next post:


Jean
 
Last edited:
Here some pics by Brice:

still unknown :


orchis purpurea:


and some pics of maculata (?) forms/vars !?:








and a pic of the luxbg. guy contemplating the blooms, but not able to clarify :):



Thanks Brice for the tour :) !!!! Jean
 
Jean, I don't know wild orchids good enough (shame for a biologist, isn't it?), but judging from pictures some of them really could be Orchis mascula (I didn't find O.maculata). Very variable species with many subspecies. Leaves can be spotted or not.

You had a very nice walk over there:)
 
Great tour Jean. Nice to see that spring is alive and well somewhere. I'll do a cyp trip in early june with a friend north of where I live.
 
....
shame for a biologist, isn't it? you're the judge :) ),

but judging from pictures some of them really could be Orchis mascula (I didn't find O.maculata). Very variable species with many subspecies. Leaves can be spotted or not.
...

Ok, orchis mascula could be, at least some of them!

=>orchis maculata (gefleckt, mottled) => Dactylorhiza maculata

Thanks

Jean
 
Thanks to you Jean it was a very interesting morning.
I think it's a nice thread.
I hope "slippertalkers" will help us in our identification.

Thanks again

Brice
 
Oh yes, marvellous tour and photos, guys!

I'm envious; our natives won't be seen for months yet. Too much snow cover...:sob:
 
Wonderfull shots, I hope to visit the German Eifel this year to see orchids in the wild. :)
 
Hi,

Your Liparis ovata should be Listera ovata.
The Orchis maculata is definitely Orchis mascula. It's to early for Dactylorhiza maculata to flower.
I've been in the Eifel (Germany) and in some areas in Luxembourg many times and in my experience D. maculata starts to flower early to mid June in these areas.

Any way, nice set of orchids. Thanks for sharing.

Rob Zuiderwijk
 
Hi,

Your Liparis ovata should be Listera ovata.

The Orchis maculata is definitely Orchis mascula. It's to early for Dactylorhiza maculata to flower.
I've been in the Eifel (Germany) and in some areas in Luxembourg many times and in my experience D. maculata starts to flower early to mid June in these areas.
....
Rob Zuiderwijk

Thanks for the precisions about mascula Rob!!!!
The Liparis was my fault, it is of course Listera!!

Btw: have you been to the Aarnescht in Luxembourg?
=> http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16373&highlight=Aarnescht

This is a nice place, but Montenach has definitely much more orchids around!! Jean
 
Marc, Rob, do you have precise places to go to in the Eifel? Jean

No I don't, nothing is set in stone yet. But the idea has been brought up to go to the Eifel this year with my brother and father where an acquaintance that is also a member of the VDOF ( German Orchidsociety ) will function as a guide.
 

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