These 16 Flowers Look Like Something Else

These flowers, as a reproductive organ, evolved with one primary purpose in mind – to attract pollinators like insects or birds. This function has driven their astounding evolutionary explosion of distinct colors and shapes, some of which have even come to resemble various recognizable figures, plants or animals.

Although normally quite a short plant Bumblebee Orchid can grow up to 35 cm in height in places where it is competing with taller plants for light. The flowers have very distinctive and relatively large, oval green sepals and small, triangular petals which are sometimes tinged with a bronze colour. The lip is three-lobed and brownish in colour sometimes with a bluish speculum although this is not always present - see below. This ophrys species is unmistakable, unlike many others, and there can be little confusion when it comes to identification. Although it is insect-pollinated, the main reason for its success in building large colonies is that it also reproduces vegetatively via its numerous root-tubers. Found throughout the Mediterranean region but more numerous in the west. Ophrys bombyliflora favours calcareous substrates which is one reason why it is so common on the coast of the Algarve where the ground is sandy and has a high content of crushed sea shells. It also occurs on waste ground in the barrocal and on abandoned farmland. This orchid flowers early in the season and can often be found from February through to the beginning of April. The specimens above were photographed in Portugal on the Algarve in mid March.