Giant orchid
Himantoglossum robertianum
Family · Orchidaceae · Harmless
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The first orchid of the year and the largest of all: a thick fleshy spike with dozens of greenish pink flowers, rising from the ground in January and reaching eighty centimetres.
Scrubland · Fields and pasture · Pine woods · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asRobert's giant orchid
How to tell it
Nothing else is confused with it, by size alone. A rosette of large, broad, glossy leaves appearing in autumn. A dense sturdy spike with twenty to fifty flowers, each with a greenish pink hood and a three-lobed lip blotched purple. It smells faintly of iris.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None. It is worth it as a season marker: when this appears on a verge, the orchid season has begun and it is worth watching the ground in the following weeks.
The law says
Protected by CITES and national law, like all wild orchids. Photograph it, do not pick it or dig up the tuber.