The widely accepted approach – the use of morphometrics – often reveals gradients without clear morphological discontinuities, which can be explained as clinal variability. The Ophrys fuciflora complex from South-eastern Europe (Slovenia and Croatia) was morphologically evaluated. Classical morphology was performed on specimens from 18 populations. Each individual plant is represented with a set of 19 floral characters obtained from a single flower. Altogether, 221 flowers were measured. According to PCA results, a high proportion of specimens shows intermediate character values, specimens belonging to different morphological entities overlap. The first morphological principal component was considered as a flower form (size and shape) vector. Correlation tests were performed based on 19 bioclimatic variables and the first morphological principal component. Nine bioclimatic variables show statistically significant, strong correlation with the flower form. Results indicate that the observed floral continuous quantitative characters, traditionally utilized to differentiate taxa in the Ophrys fuciflora complex are affected by the local climatic conditions and latitude, and exhibit clinal variability. An integrative taxonomical approach to the genus Ophrys should also take into account site-specific ecological conditions, to investigate and prove possible clinal variability first, but also taxa-specific phenology.

广泛接受的方法（使用形态计量学）通常会显示没有明显形态学不连续性的梯度，这可以解释为临床差异。该Ophrys fuciflora对东南欧（斯洛文尼亚和克罗地亚）的复合体进行了形态学评估。对18个种群的标本进行了经典形态学分析。每棵植物都代表着从一朵花中获得的19个花卉特征。总共测量了221朵花。根据PCA结果，很大一部分标本显示出中等的字符值，属于不同形态实体的标本重叠。第一个形态学主要成分被认为是花形（大小和形状）载体。基于19个生物气候变量和第一个形态学主要成分进行了相关性测试。九个生物气候变量显示出与花形的统计显着性，强相关性。结果表明，观察到的花连续定量特征，千眼藤复杂受当地气候条件和纬度的影响，并表现出渐进变化。对Ophrys属的综合分类学方法还应考虑到特定地点的生态条件，首先要研究和证明可能的变数，但也要研究特定分类群的物候。