''Gymnadenia rhellicani'' (common name: dark vanilla orchid or black vanilla orchid) is a European 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 ...

Description

''Gymnadenia rhellicani'' grows high, with a dense, globose to cylindrical inflorescence of red-brown to chocolate-brown flowers with a

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civil ...

-like aroma. Some plants, especially in the south of the species' range have noticeably paler flowers.

Distribution

''Gymnadenia rhellicani'' grows in the Alps and Carpathians at altitudes of .

Taxonomy

The species was described as a distinct species in 1990 by Herwig Teppner and Erich Klein, who noted that it was

diploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respecti ...

and reproduced sexually, in contrast to the rest of the wider '' Gymnadenia nigra'' group, which is

polyploid Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than one pair of (homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes, where each set contain ...

and

apomictic In botany, apomixis is asexual reproduction without fertilization. Its etymology is Greek for "away from" + "mixing". This definition notably does not mention meiosis. Thus "normal asexual reproduction" of plants, such as propagation from cutt ...

. At the time, all these taxa were in the genus ''Nigritella'', but that was later subsumed into ''

Gymnadenia ''Gymnadenia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the orchid family (Orchidaceae) containing 22 terrestrial species. The former genus ''Nigritella'' is now included in ''Gymnadenia''. They can be found in damp meadows, fens and marshes, and on ch ...

''. The specific epithet "''rhellicanus''" commemorates

Johannes Rhellicanus Johannes Müller ( la, Johannes Rellicanus, also ''Rellikan'' or ''Rellikon'', ''circa'' 1478-1488 - 14 January 1542) was a Swiss clergyman and theologian of the Reformation in Switzerland, philologist and philosopher, noted for his work in ea ...

, who in 1536 made the earliest description of the species known to the authors.Rhellicanus himself called the plant ''Christimanus'' ( la, Christi manus, "Christ's hand").

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q15478148 rhellicani Plants described in 1990