Appearance
It is a rhizomatous herbaceous plant growing to 85 cm, with an inflorescence of 10-20 violet flowers produced from April to June. The leaves are reduced to scales and, although Limodorum contains photosynthetic pigments, these are insufficient to support the nutrition of the adult plant which is believed to rely entirely on a mycoheterotrophic or parasitic relationship with fungi, primarily of the family Russulaceae. Seeds are among the largest produced by orchids and seedlings develop very slowly, remaining entirely below ground for 8–10 years before flowering.
Habitat
Typical Mediterranean habitat is open woodland of evergreen oak, pine and chestnut on alkaline soil from sea level to 1,300 metres.References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
