COUNTRY LIFE
Photo: Pyra midal orchid by Mark Heighes
spellbound
Be
by orchids
E
nter a bewitching world of men
and monkeys, ladies and lizards,
frogs and flies – our summer
orchids.
Summer is a time for wild flower
meadows - hillsides ablaze with colour
and a-buzz with insects. The superstars of
the wild flower world are the orchids, and
now is the best time to go out and enjoy
their glamorous allure.
Of the fifty or so species that are native
to the UK, some are surprisingly common
and widespread, while others are our
most elusive rarities, found only in a
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By Lianne de Mello, Hampshire
& Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust PR
and Communications Officer
select handful of special places.
The beautiful bee orchid, whose flower
famously mimics a furry-bodied bee to
fool its pollinator, is actually amongst the
more common species, often turning up
on road verges as well as grasslands and
open ground around gravel pits. It’s more
understated cousin, the fly orchid pulls off
a similar trick on the edge of woodland.
Look for the bizarre bird’s-nest orchid
deeper in the woods. Growing up from
the dense leaf litter, the bird’s-nest orchid
is a parasite which steals all its nutrients
from the roots of trees. As a result it has
dispensed with the green chlorophyll that
other plants use to make their food, and
is a ghostly creamy-brown colour all over.
On chalk grassland, look for the dense
pink flower spikes of pyramidal orchids
and the taller, cylindrical spikes of fragrant
orchid, which smell sweetly, especially
in the evening. Less ‘fragrant’ and more
‘smelly’ is the lizard orchid. A rarity found
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