Fly Orchid, Ophrys Insectifera

Looking up into a fly orchid, worm's-eye view

 
​What you'll first see when you find fly orchid  is several dark flowers on a slender spike.  Flowers are deep violet-brown, the sepals green, the plant  tiny.  It's found on calcareous soils sometimes in the shade of trees on rough, grassy ground.
Fly Orchid, Ophrys Insectifera. 'The fly orchid relies solely on insect pollination, so it mimics an insect in appearance and emits pheromones to lure the male into thinking he’s found a female. Trying to mate with the flower, he transfers pollen in pseudocopulation.'  Cumbrian Contrasts.   Lie on the ground and look closely into the flower and you'll begin to see how interesting it is.  Fly orchid mimics an insect,  specifically the female Gorytes wasp. I haven't seen a fly orchid being pollinated and wouldn't recognise the Gorytes wasp.

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Look at the fur of bees pollinating knapweed and carline thistle and  compare what you see to  the texture of the fly orchid.  Iridescent flecks of pollen cling to insect fur and orchid.  Ophrys have a shiny pattern-shield' or speculum which reflects sunlight like a mirror, like the wings of bee or hoverfly.  The fly orchid emits pheromones to lure a male insect to pollinate and the chemical ecology is precise and complex.  It's a very specific relationship between orchid and pollinator.   The fly orchid  does not have classic petals.  Where are  anther, stamens, pollinia?  Perhaps its that pale yellow cluster on the upper part of the image.  Has this flower been pollinated?  If you know what to look for you can  tell.
The fly orchid is perennial so I can come back next year and hope to find it again.   Does is reproduce by seed-dispersal?  
Ophrys, including fly orchid, have rounded root-tubers. And a complex mycorrhizal association.
In evolutionary terms Ophrys insectifera is amazing, that intricate relationship between flower and pollinator. 

Next day saw blustery South West winds and  louring cloud, although rain held off most of the morning.  Over the escarpment, swifts and ravens were flung on the wind, bird-calls almost drowned out.  None of the larger butterflies could fly in that wind, only micro-moths in the more sheltered dips and hollows.  
I found more fly orchid in a different location.  Spending hours studying my images, I'm attuned. And the light green of sepals, leaves and stem shows them distinctive.