Month: June 2021

I’m not a botanist but…… (part two)

Lady’s slipper orchid

In Part One I described the background to my hunt for the lady’s slipper orchid, but some detailed research was required for its actual location. A “re-introduced” plant at Gait Barrows would be fine but when would they be flowering? One local naturalist told me via email that, despite the cold spring, they were already flowering by mid-May, and this was confirmed a few days later by someone at Natural England ; not on the limestone pavement itself but “at the bottom of the field with the bird’s-eye primroses”. This sounded promising!

It was a five-hour drive to the camp site at Silverdale where we had booked a three-night stay. We spent the first morning at the nearby Leighton Moss RSPB reserve, and then headed off to Gait Barrows. We were a fair way into the NNR on a public footpath when we came across some birds-eye primroses on the other side of a fence. Entering the enclosure I followed a path as far it went without finding anything. I began to search a little harder and found four rosettes of orchid leaves bursting through the leaf litter but which species they were I had no idea.

Birds eye primroses

The primroses are a delight in themselves and I began to photograph them. Then I heard voices. Jane had been resting nearby and was now talking to another visitor. They came over and found me lying on the ground lining up the primroses. Had we come to see the orchids? You bet! I retraced my steps with him and there they were ……….. one clump withered and brown and another with two flowers in perfect condition. I think you will agree they are extraordinary; I don’t know how I could have missed them! On closer examination you could see that each plant and each stem was surrounded by copper rings, presumably to deter slugs. It was a straightforward task to photograph them and I then returned to the bird’s eye primroses.

The orchid enthusiast also mentioned fly orchids and I was keen to see that species as well. Following his instructions the next day I found myself on a grass verge beside a main road a few miles away. There could not be more of a contrast between two related species than between the fly and the lady’s slipper. One is showy and exotic and the other subtle and understated – but no less exquisite for that.

Fly orchid

Photographing the fly orchids proved much more difficult than I expected. In his book “The Orchid Hunter” Leif Bersweden says of them –

“[Fly orchids are] ……. true masters of stealth and camouflage. They appear slowly and softly, shifting in and out of focus. …….. You’ll see one three meters away yet remain unaware that one has crept right up to your knee. Over the years I’ve realised that looking for fly orchids is a futile activity; their ability to vanish right in front of your eyes is unprecedented.”

Several plants were already marked by sticks but I found an unmarked one, and mentally noted its location before I went to fetch my camera bag. On my return it was impossible to re-locate it. When I tried to photograph one of the marked plants, my lens refused to auto-focus, I worried about cars going past, about my van parked across the road in the quarry entrance next to the “No Parking” sign, and if I was crushing unseen plants in my attempt to get down to fly orchid level in the vegetation. All very frustrating but it was eventually “job done”.

Later I returned to Gait Barrows to see if I could find the lady’s slipper on the limestone pavement where they were originally planted. Most naturalists are happy to help and I asked several for directions, but with no joy. Either they weren’t interested in orchids or I was told variously that “they had all died or been picked”, “they have all been re-located”, “they are still in leaf”, and “the new warden isn’t watering them, so they’re late flowering” . But with photographs of the lady’s slipper already in the can I could relax; and it was a bonus to see a stunning little butterfly called the Duke of Burgundy in a clearing on the reserve specially created for them.

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I’m not a botanist but……. (part one)

s

………….. I do love a good wild flower.

As mentioned in a previous post I spent a week touring southern England last month. The main attractions were the great bustards of Salisbury Plain but my first stop was actually a little north of there, at Cricklade, near Swindon. Here, at North Meadow, on the floodplain of the Upper Thames, is an ancient hay meadow. Unlike many other similar sites it has not been ploughed or dug up for gravel extraction. It has retained its ancient system of management and is now a National Nature Reserve. It is alive with wild flowers, including 80% of the UK’s snakeshead fritillaries. Its crop of hay is taken off in late summer after the wild flowers have set seed. 

A small proportion of the flowers are white.

I arrived at North Meadow at dawn on a cold May day to find a wisp of freezing fog in the air and countless thousands of fritillaries in bloom. Good timing? Possibly …….. but the sheer number of flowers was overwhelming. My first reaction was to try to photograph them en masse before the fog and frost dispersed. I was like a headless chicken! However the long telephoto lens needed to do a mass of flowers justice has a very narrow depth of field and most individual blooms were out of focus. I eventually settled down to photographing small groups of flowers or individuals, and even then a long focal length was required to reach photogenic specimens from the safety of the footpath. My first intention was to show flowers complete with ice crystals but they soon melted into tiny water droplets which proved to be more attractive. I moved on later that day to Salisbury Plain.

I have always found orchids fascinating. With only roughly fifty species in the UK it is a plant family which the non-botanist can get to grips relatively easily. My parents were great wild orchid lovers, and there’s no doubt there’s something special about orchids, something exotic, and exciting. The extreme rarity of some species only adds to their appeal. I had long harboured the desire to see the lady’s slipper orchid in the wild in the UK. This species with its extraordinary flowers was found in and around woodland on limestone in various parts of northern England. Its looks were its downfall, though; it was picked and collected to extinction by 1917. Then, in 1930, one single plant was found somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales. It has remained there ever since, its location only known to a select few. It is legally protected, fenced off and under close surveillance 24/7 to deter thieves and photographers.

Over a period of decades, however, a programme to reintroduce the lady’s slipper orchid to its former haunts has been under way. With great difficulty plants have been grown from seed at Kew Gardens and replanted in suitable locations across northern England. At one National Nature Reserve in Lancashire, Gait Barrows, the plants in the limestone pavement are made available for public viewing every year, and it was in this area that I made some inquiries. When would they be flowering this year after such a cold spring?

Click here for Part Two ……..

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