25.05.25 Early Meadow Orchids

The Front Meadow is doing nicely now despite extremely dry weather in the last two months. The sward is not high and not thick so it allows a decent variety of wildflowers: particularly this year Yellow rattle, Red clover, Hop trefoil, Ragged robin (despite the dryness), and Buttercup. There is a nice, restricted quantity of Oxeye daisies – they are not too dominant this year.

Three small intensely cerise-pink coloured orchids have been flowering for a while now. The first one started coming out as early as May the 12th. This and other features make me think they could be the pulchella subspecies of Dactylorhiza incarnata, the Early Marsh orchid, rather than the Southern Marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza praetermissa), which does also flower here.

The early flowering, small stature of the plants, vivid flower colour, and the small size of the individual flowers are all in favour of this idea. Also the flower lip is quite diamond shaped, even though the sides are not curled backwards as often occurs with the Early Marsh.

The Southern Marsh has a broad end to the lip with usually a small central tooth, and those on the Front meadow have mostly been a slightly dull pink, as is common for the species. I include a photo of one from last year, for comparison. Also I would normally expect Southern Marsh to only just start flowering now, but I have to admit everything is very early this year.

Anyway, if they are Early Marsh pulchella it would bring the total of orchid species found on the front meadow to 4, so far.

In other news, an unexpected white flower also appeared recently. I have identified it as Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum), which is a European wildflower but widely grown in gardens in the U.K. It must have blown in on the wind from a nearby garden. Despite being attractive I plan to dig it up and relocate it before seed-set, as it is said to be quite invasive!

Anthony.heys@sky.com