O is for orchid

Orchids are fascinating not least because they disdain to follow the rules we intuit to be binding for all flowers. Flowers should be symmetrical; they should flower every year; they should have green leaves and stems; flowers of the same family should look alike in some way; flowers should not do uncanny impressions of flies or monkeys or little naked men. Well, say the orchids, we’ll see about that. There are around 52 species growing wild in the UK, but they dodge the taxonomist by hybridising easily, creating populations that are often distinctive to one place and time. The purple common spotted orchid is the easiest to find, in woodland, grassland and wetland all summer long; at the other end of the scale is the ghost orchid – leafless, translucent and fed solely by fungi in the soil of shady woodlands. It’s good at playing dead – sometimes a decade passes without a sighting, and it was (erroneously) declared extinct in Britain in 2005. In between there are dozens of species the sight of which can make any walk more special. Like the bee orchid, which tries to trick bees into mating with it on chalk and limestone grasslands; the beautiful greater butterfly orchid – widespread in hay meadows and ancient woods in southern England, and the fragrant pyramidal orchid, unusually tolerant of human activity so found on roadsides, roundabouts and in churchyards. Perhaps the surest-fire location is Hartslock reserve in south Oxfordshire – where five types of orchid grow on rich sloping grassland above the Thames between Goring and Panbourne, including the neverbefore-seen hybrid Lady x Monkey, (pictured above).

The Wildlife Trusts maintain a database of where to find orchids in the wild across the UK: www.wildlifetrusts. org/where_to_see_orchids