15-May London’s Vanishing Orchids

The early purple orchid on the other hand is a great beauty and has declined to small numbers in most places where it occurs. As with many orchids, Londoners are more likely to see them when visiting North Kent nature reserves rather than looking in London’s woods. All the colour forms of early purple orchid, including white, still survive in one Croydon wood. This plant has a rich natural history with over ninety different local names recorded in different parts of Britain such as goosey ganders, dead man’s fingers, bloody butcher and adder’s meat. The last name comes from a notion that the leaves resemble a coiled adder just out of hibernation, which could also be encountered this month. Like other orchids, it has two tubers which have been likened to human testicles. The genus name Orchis itself means testicle. The larger of the two tubers provides next year’s growth and the smaller one gradually diminishes, creating this year’s flower. A third tuber is then produced for the following season. Because of this it was thought that some orchids could slowly change their position and were capable in some cases of gradually moving across a field.

The main orchids associated with May are common spotted, green winged, bird’s nest, man, fly and the narrow-leaved helleborine. The one most likely to be seen is the common spotted orchid Dactylorhiza fuschsii which can even still sometimes be seen in long grass at the edges of roads in the countryside. Its flowers vary in colour from white, through a variety of pinks to purple. They are also liberally marked with dots, lines and splashes of colour which form many different patterns. Sometimes these patterns and their colours can be quite exceptional. Even its leaves differ in their spots.

In the not too distant past, one of the finest sights in May was a field of green-winged orchids Orchis morio. In damp meadows and churchyards thousands, if not tens of thousands, could be seen. These sites are all but gone, but careful sympathetic management of such churchyards could bring a few back. The tubers of this species and others were collected, peeled and dried. They were thought to be highly nutritious and, due to their resistance to mould, were taken on long sea voyages. Boiled in milk they made a nutritious meal or salep which was popular in London till the end of the eighteenth century. William Turner, the Elizabethan botanist and divine, recorded there were enough early purple orchids in Cobham Park to “please all the seaman’s wives in Rochester”.

The fly orchid Ophrys insectifera is also still found in some shady woods across the southern edge of London. It may be more common than we think as its small dark flowers are so difficult to see in the shade it prefers. The flowers themselves are good mimics of small flies. The purple-brown lip looks like the body, the slate-blue speculum like the wings and two projecting petals, the antennae. There even seem to be eyes. This is all enough to fool digger wasps, which happily attempt to copulate with the flowers. They are rewarded with two drumstick pollinia becoming attached slightly comically to their heads, which they then pass on to the next flower. However, it doesn’t seem to be the most successful pollination mechanism, with only one out of five flowers setting seed.

The bird’s nest orchid Neottia nidus-avis has no chlorophyll and perfectly matches the colour of the beech leaves among which it is so often found. Its flowers have been compared in shape to a human torso. Fortunately, the flower spike takes two or three years to decay, so it tends to be found more often than you might expect in the shady woods where it slowly fades away. It seems to do better in warm, wet springs. The flowers give off a honey scent and it can still be found on Box Hill.

In contrast, the flowers of the man orchid Aceras anthropomorpha are the shape of a man wearing a large cowl concealing his face. The flower lip forms the arms and legs, all of which can be either yellow, red or both. Although this orchid is also in decline it can still be found on Box Hill, the yellow form on Hutchinson’s Bank and the red form in Happy Valley. The narrow-leaved helleborine Cephalanthera longifolia is now extremely rare, but may still hang on in the Titsey area. At the end of May, the first flowers of the early marsh, fragrant and lesser butterfly orchids as well as the white helleborine may all start to show, but they will be easier to see in June.