Botanical illustration of J. Curtis del., Weddell sc. from Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Volume 52, p. 2569
Perennial herbaceous tuberous plant with a height of 15-35 cm, with two whitish webbed dull sheaths at the base of the stem .
The tubers are ovoid or elliptical, up to 2.5 cm long and 1.5 cm wide.
Leaves are 3-5, oblong-obovate, obtuse, narrowed to the base, 2.5–35 mm wide, 6-11 cm long, green, without spots, form a rosette at the base of the stem. Above the stem is a leaf-shaped, enclosing, pointed vagina.
Inflorescence is a dense, multi-flowered spike , 3.5-7 cm long, 3-4 cm wide, ovoid or short-cylindrical.
The flowers are pale yellow or yellowish-green, with a smell resembling black elderberry . Bracts are lanceolate, almost equal to the ovary, 1-1.3 cm long, up to 4 mm wide, with one vein, yellowish. The lateral leaflets of the outer circle are deflected to the sides, unequal, with three veins, oblong-ovate, 8–9 mm long; the middle one is slightly concave, oblong-elliptical, obtuse, with one vein, 7-8 mm long. Two petals of the inner perianth circle are obtuse, 5-6 mm long. The lip is brighter yellow, with dark veins, toward the middle is greenish-yellowish, almost round, 7-8.5 mm long, 7.5-10 mm wide, on top with the smallest papillae, with rounded blunt lateral lobes, with a wider, wide-square, at the apex of a slightly notched or whole-marginal middle lobe. The spur is cylindrical, obtuse, 7-11 mm long, shorter or almost equal to the ovary, curved down. It blooms in April - May.
The range covers the central and southern part of Europe ( Austria , Czechoslovakia , Germany , Hungary , Poland , Switzerland , France , Corsica , Spain , Albania , Bulgaria , Greece , Italy , Romania , Yugoslavia ) Crete , the Caucasus , Turkey , the middle mountain belt of the Crimea , except Yail Adler district of Krasnodar Territory (on the Aibga Range).
It is rare in mountain meadows and forest glades.
View entered in the Red Books of Russia , Krasnodar Territory and Ukraine.
