!Barlia robertiana (Loisel.) Greuter 1967 Photo by © Piotr Markiewicz

Plant and Flowers in situ Photo courtesy of Th. Pain and the Orchids of France and Europe

to LATE to EARLY

Common Name Robert's Barlia [French Orchid Collector 1800's]

Flower Size 1 1/4" [3.25 cm]

Found as a cold to cool growing terrestrial in Southern Europe, Iberia, and North Africa where it is found on grassy hillsides, in woodland clearings and among scrub at elevations of sealevel to 1100 meters with large ovoid or ellipsoid tubers and 5 to 10 oblong-elliptic, acute or obtuse, glossy green leaves that blooms in the late winter and early spring on a short to 4 to 6" [10 to 15 cm] long, cylindric, densely many flowered, racemose inflorescence with bracts that exceed the flowers and carries fragrant nodding, campanulate flowers, after which it needs a drier summer followed by a wetter winter after the new growth appears.

Synonyms Aceras longibracteata (Bivona) Rchb. fil. 1833; Barlia longibractea (Bivona) Parlatore 1858; Himantoglossum longibracteatum (Bivona) Schlechter 1914; Himantoglossum robertianum (Loisel.) P.Delforge 1999; Loroglossum longibracteatum (Bivona) Mori ?; Orchis foliosa Masson ex Ker Gawl. 1819; Orchis fragrans Ten. 1811 ;. Orchis longebracteata F.W. Schmidt 1791; Orchis longibracteata Bivona-Bernardi 1806; *Orchis robertiana Loisel. 1807

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Manual of Orchids Stewart 1995; Encylopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as Himantoglossum robertianum; Manual of Cultivated Orchids Bechtel, Cribb, Laurent 1992; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Orchds Pridgeon 1992;