Golan’s Protected Species of Pink Butterfly Orchid in Israel’s Northernmost Region

From reading and watching TV you’d think that since we’re about one mile from the border between Israel and Lebanon, the habitat would be a hardscrabble mess, pock-marked by old ordinance. Funny, kind of.

Ah, no. Orchis papilonacea is doing just fine along this northernmost Golan in Israel. The plant’s delicate pink blossoms were borne on an elegantly vertical, strong stem. Butterflies are zooming this way and that on this gently descending trail. There were about 8 of these Pink orchids in sight. There weren’t any blossoms beyond this grouping. As with our post of several other Protected Israeli wildflowers, this March bloom was a boon for the plants, with minimal human presence here at winter’s end.

2013 has brought near record rain to this region. We cannot imagine how verdant this habitat will be in the very near future.

Yes, yes Angela, wingedbeauty.com is a blog featuring butterflies, but let’s repeat again, these rare wildflowers were so beautiful, so fragile and it’s butterflies that brought us to them in the first place.

Jeff

Pink Butterfly Orchid (Protected) (wingedbeauty.com)
Hermon Iris (Protected) (wingedbeauty.com)
Sun’s-Eye Tulip (Protected) (wingedbeauty.com)
Common Gladiolus (Protected) (wingedbeauty.com)

2 thoughts on “Golan’s Protected Species of Pink Butterfly Orchid in Israel’s Northernmost Region”

I am with you, if it were not for the flowers would we have the butterflies to take care of the flowers?? What the “blues”, here all live, mate,eat there whole life’s within proximity of the lupine….. without the lupine here in the high desert of Oregon, no blue species of this endangered butterfly.
Keep up the great work !

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