''Epipactis palustris'', the marsh helleborine, is a species of

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

native to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

Description

''Epipactis palustris'' is a perennial herbaceous plant. This species has a stem growing to 60 cm high with as many as ten erect leaves up to 12 cm long and up to 4 cm wide, with parallel venation. It persists as an underground horizontal stem called a

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

, from which new roots and stems grow each year. The aerial part of the stem is upright and has a cylindrical section. The base of the aerial stem is glabrous (smooth) and surrounded with pink scales, the upper part of the stem is

pubescent The adjective pubescent may describe: * people or animals undergoing puberty * plants that are hairy, covered in trichomes * insects that are covered in setae In biology, setae (singular seta ; from the Latin word for "bristle") are any of a ...

and slightly reddened. The flowers are 17 mm across arranged in a one-sided raceme. In the typical form, the sepals are coloured deep pink or purplish-red, the upper petals shorter and paler. The labellum at least as long as the sepals, white with red or yellow spots in the middle. Variants without most of the reddish colours of the typical form have been called ''E. palustris'' var. ''ochroleuca''. The fruit is a many-ribbed capsule, containing a large number of minute seeds.

Distribution and habitat

, including the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

countries,

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, north

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

, the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

, north

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, West and East

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

. This species occurs in the

Sarmatic mixed forests The Sarmatic mixed forests constitute an ecoregion within the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature classification (ecoregion PA0436). The term comes from the word "Sarmatia". Distribution This e ...

ecoregion.C.Michael Hogan. 2011
"Sarmatic mixed forests". Topic ed. Sidney Draggan. Ed.-in-chief Cutler J.Cleveland. Encyclopedia of Earth. Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment
/ref> ''Epipactis palustris'' is typically found in humid woodland and grassland, as well as in marshes, dune slacks and bogs. It prefers a calcareous substrate with a basic pH, low nutrient availability and medium wet.

Pollination and ecology

Each flower contains male and female organs of reproduction. Flowers produce nectar and are pollinated by

wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. T ...

bees Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

and

Diptera Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

. Orchids rely on a symbiotic relationship with soil fungi, which gives them access to more soil nutrients. ''Epipactis palustris'' is specialised compared to other ''Epipactis'' species, partnering mainly with fungal species in the order ''

Helotiales Helotiales is an order of the class Leotiomycetes within the division Ascomycota. The taxonomy within Helotiales has been debated. It has expanded significantly as genomic techniques for taxonomical identification have become more commonly used. ...

'', but also to a much lesser degree with ''

Sebacina ''Sebacina'' is a genus of fungi in the family Sebacinaceae. Its species are mycorrhizal, forming a range of associations with trees and other plants. Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are produced on soil and litter, sometimes partly encrusting stems ...

'', ''

Tulasnella ''Tulasnella'' is a genus of effused (patch-forming) fungi in the order Cantharellales. Basidiocarps (fruit bodies), when visible, are typically smooth, ceraceous (waxy) to subgelatinous, frequently lilaceous to violet-grey, and formed on the un ...

'', ''

Thelephora ''Thelephora'' is a genus of fungi in the family Thelephoraceae. The genus has a widespread distribution and contains about 50 species. Fruit bodies of species are leathery, usually brownish at maturity, and range in shape from coral-like tufts to ...

'' and ''

Ceratobasidium ''Ceratobasidium'' is a genus of fungi in the order Cantharellales. Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are effused and the genus is sometimes grouped among the corticioid fungi, though species also retain features of the heterobasidiomycetes. Anamorphi ...

'' in descending order of frequency.

Etymology

''Epipactis'' is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word the meaning of which is disputed, but some have translated it as "grow above". The species

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

''palustris'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "of the marsh" and indicates its common habitat. "Helleborine" may refer to deer using the orchid for food (many conservationists have noted that helleborine orchids are grazed by deer.). Alternatively it may denote that the plants are similar to

hellebores Commonly known as hellebores (), the Eurasian genus ''Helleborus'' consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae. ...

(a group of species in the family

Ranunculaceae Ranunculaceae (buttercup or crowfoot family; Latin "little frog", from "frog") is a family of over 2,000 known species of flowering plants in 43 genera, distributed worldwide. The largest genera are ''Ranunculus'' (600 species), ''Delphinium' ...

), possibly because many species of orchid closely related to ''E. palustris'' have green flowers like the hellebores. "Hellebore" comes from the Greek "álkē" and "bora", translating as "fawn" and "food of beasts".Dictionary.com
/ref>

References

External links

Den virtuella floran - Distribution
{{Authority control palustris Orchids of Europe Orchids of Russia Flora of Siberia