NATURE NOTES
THE writer WH Hudson said that orchids made him believe in the existence of the devil. The flowers are strange and designed to attract certain types of insects. The dark stains on the leaves give them a sinister look. When Hudson was writing in the 1890s, the orchid certainly had an aura of decadence as a fashion accessory for the rakish sort. About then, the French writer Joris Karl Huysmans created the dissolute aristocratic aesthete Duc des Esseintes in his novel À rebours (Against Nature).
The character had a love for his gemstoneencrusted pet tortoise, his banquets comprising completely of black food and drink and his fondness for orchids ‘so delicate and charming, at once cold and palpitating, exotic flowers exiled in the heated glass palaces of Paris, princesses of the vegetable kingdom living in solitude, having absolutely nothing in common with the street plants and other bourgeois flora’.
But dear reader, I wish to remove you from fin de siècle France and the depravity of the yellow book and the mauve decade and take you to Cheddleton.
I have recently joined Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and discovered that one of the reserves it controls is Rod Wood a little to the east of Cheddleton.
It is part of the Churnet Valley Living Landscape.
It is described as an ‘interesting mosaic of scrub, unimproved grassland and woodland. This diversity of habitats is one of the reasons why Rod Wood is so important for wildlife’. The Trust bought the area because hay meadows and open pastures are under threat from clearance and overgrazing.
The meadows support a range of plants and even rarities have been found in the vicinity of Rod Wood and it is of such a rarity that I write. A few years ago a single lesser butterfly orchid was found there.
A rather pretty-looking plant with tall white flowers, it was once common but its numbers have declined precipitously in recent years as a consequence of changes in agricultural practice.
In some cases, the reasons may be clear – such as drainage. Others are more intricate. For example, agricultural chemicals that are used affect a fungus that grows with the orchid seedlings, and without it, they cannot bloom.
It has a wonderfully aromatic smell and on summer nights its fragrance attracts pollinating moths.
A national organisation Back from the Brink has adopted the plant as one of England’s 20 most threatened species and is consequently enjoying some success in restoring numbers. The legend is that Christ was praying on the night before his crucifixion. Angels appeared to comfort him, placing themselves in the flowers of the orchid. The orchid, it is said, bears the shapes of the angelic host and their continuing celestial influence is demonstrated by the flower’s perfumed scent on July evenings. This column endeavours to bring you from the natural world, both angels and devils.