UK wild orchids 2013

[johnralphcarpenter]

Lots of early purple orchids in the woods on the North Downs near here - but forgot to take camera today!

[Maren]

Kristof (please forgive the spelling),

I love your story about the "Blümchen". Another great example why binomial Latin is such a good idea as in Cardamine praensis - thanks for the identification. Then there is no mix up (unless the taxonomists go and re-name a genus or species, but that is a different matter altogether).

[Anthony Darby]

..........then there is cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum). I call cuckoo flower "lady's smock".

[ashley]

'Lady's smock' here too (Irish biolar gréagáin); traditionally used against scurvy and as a treatment for epilepsy. 
We digress, again

[K Andrzejewski]

 I have no idea how to take high quality pictures, so don't kill me please. A few photos from sunday - a short walk through North Downs in Kent
Early Purple nearly over, Butterfly Orchid still in buds, Fly already started, and sometimes big amount of Twayblade.
Regards -
Kristof

[Peter Maguire]

Good to see that someone has orchids in flower - I've yet to see an early purple in the usual sites I see them when driving around.
Perhaps I ought to get out of the car and look properly. 

[SteveC2]

I've been really busy the past few weeks and what little orchid hunting I had time for proved unsuccessful; greater butterfly orchids in bud or eaten, bird's nest orchids still elusive, but I've had a bonanza in the past two days.
Monday saw me in heading to my local venues in search of some old friends.
A stop in a roadside layby revealed a little group of a dozen been orchids growing in the stoniest harshest looking verge, but there's no competition so they are happy.
A couple of miles down the road and England's most northerly man orchid colony is thriving and spreading, again along a roadside verge.  So here's a question.  If it's England's most northerly colony does that make it the world's most northerly?
A single bee orchid is also growing here.

[SteveC2]

And so down the road to dactylorhiza heaven.  The southern marsh orchids used to grow only on one side of the fence that divides two fields.  Three years ago grazing was stopped and now they are spreading onto the other side.  Move away and the ground becomes a little drier and twayblades start to appear, but why do they like growing in the middle of the path?

[SteveC2]

Next came a little trip to the south of the county, crossing into Northamptonshire I think, but the county borders are so confused that I'm never quite sure where I am.  On a famous "lumpy" reserve, loads of fragrant orchids everywhere, by my reckoning very early for here, in a year when everything else is late.  Go figure!
Great news is that the man orchids are also spreading and this has been the best year in the time that I've been visiting.
The frog orchids are a few days away from opening, each plant carefully marked with a stone to avoid trampling.

[SteveC2]

Next was a visit to an old landfill site in search of dacts, bee orchids and pyramids.  Seems I was a bit early for the bees and pyramids although both were so thick on the ground in places that you really had to watch your step but there were some very nice dacts, though some were going over.

[SteveC2]

And some more landfill dacts.

[SteveC2]

And the journey continues!  Today over to two limestone quarries near the coast.  Once again the dacytlorhizas are not quite fully open but they will be spectacular in a few days.

[SteveC2]

And saving the best until last.  Driving between the two quarries I nearly had a heart attack, or should I say dact attack?  Stretching up a hill, (yes we do have some in Lincolnshire!) on both sides of the verge were thousands of dactylorhizas.  All I could think was "Dact! Dact! Dact!" before doing the fastest three point turn of my life.
So some pictures of what must be one of the prettiest road junctions ever.

[SteveC2]

And finally a few of the plants!
And the moral of all these posts?
If you've got a little time get out there as this is the best time of year to go orchid hunting.

[Corrado & Rina]

Went orchid hunting on Monday .... look at this swarm (I think it is an Dact hybrid swarm). It started few years ago, and now there are thousands and thousands of orchids, from white to very deep purple.

The second has a Burnet Moth caterpillar  as well ....