Orchids, for reasons I don't understand, appeal to me more than any other British wildflower. Perhaps it is that most are exceptionally beautiful, yet they rarely have any scent, are sometimes uninteresting to look at, are often difficult to find, and can be infuriatingly hard for the amateur to identify. Worse, in some places - Felixstowe is an example - there are virtually no specimens to discover.
When we came to Golspie we feared that, being so far north, there might again be few or none to find. Happily, that fear has not been realised, and in our first summer here we have found at least four species, and remain optimistic that we will find more.
Anatomy of an orchid flower
'Spotted Orchids'
This is one of the first orchids I ever noticed, in June 2010, despite having been surrounded by them on Ardnamurchan for some 14 years. It was on the corner at the bottom of Bill Green's drive in Ormsaigbeg.
It's possibly a heath spotted / common spotted hybrid.
Heath Spotted, Dactylorhiza maculata
This is a classic Heath Spotted. The flower has a broad lip and small, central tooth.
Ormsaigbeg, Ardnamurchan. June 2010.
Shows close-up of lip.
Ormsaigbeg, Ardnamurchan. June 2010.
Heath Spotted orchids range from white through pale pink to light purple.
Ormsaigbeg, Ardnamurchan. June 2011.
We've now found heath spotted orchids near Golspie, in only one location, in woodland on the slopes of Beinn Bhraggie, so it's nothing like as widespread as on Ardnamurchan where, in season, we would come across it widely. That said, the Beinn Bhraggie orchids were there in their hundreds.
Common Spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii
This Common Spotted orchid was the first orchid I photographed, in June 2010. It shows the species' deeply divided lip with typical purple to dark red patterning.
Ormsaigbeg, Ardnamurchan.
The prolonged 'tooth' of this Common Spotted is unusual, and it has a strikingly bold patterning. Found in croft land at Ormsaigbeg, Ardnamurchan, in July 2011.
As with the heath spotted, we have only found common spotted orchids in one place near Golspie, in the glen of Golspie burn, where a small number were growing in a clearing in woodland.
Heath Fragrant Orchid
We identified the Heath Fragrant orchids early on in our orchid journey: my first photograph is from June 2011.
The Hardy Orchid Society describes the orchid thus: "The upper sepal and petals form a hood over the flower lip, and the lateral sepals are more or less horizontal, sometimes angled slightly downwards. The upper and lower margins of the lateral sepals are rolled backwards. The lip is flat and as wide as it is long. The flowers have a strong sweet scent."*
McKie's meadow, Ormsaigbeg, Ardnamurchan. June 2015.
Heath Fragrant orchid, Lag na Lion croft, Ormsaigbeg, Ardnamurchan. June 2011.
The flower is very like the much less common marsh fragrant, which has a lip divided into three distinct lobes.
Heath Fragrant leaves.
Butterfly Orchids
Lesser Butterfly-orchid, Platanthera bifolia
This is a Lesser Butterfly-orchid, one of just two of these beautiful, delicate orchids found one day in June 2012 on the west slope of Meall Clach an Daraich, NM464699, Ardnamurchan. I well remember the excitement of finding them. Later we came across specimens near Achnaha and Sanna.
The lesser and greater species can be distinguished as follows: "Superficially the two species are remarkably similar, and the easiest way to determine which of the two you have found is to inspect the pollinia (pollen-bearing structures) at close quarters. In the Lesser Butterfly-orchid the pollinia are close together and parallel, whereas those of the Greater Butterfly-orchid are well separated and lean inwards towards the top."*
The leaves of the Lesser Butterfly-orchids we found were pale green and quite small, and more pointed than in the greater butterfly orchid.
Greater Butterfly-orchid, Platanthera chlorantha
This Greater Butterfly-orchid was found in the meadow at the back of Smith's croft, Orsmaigbeg, a few hundred yards from our house.
These two orchids are difficult to tell apart, the only visible feature being the spread of the pollinia. The Greater Butterfly-orchid has the wider-separated pollinia.
Greater Butterfly-orchid, showing two small, pale green oval leaves at the base of a long stem.
Marsh & Early Purple Orchids
This is my first picture of a Marsh Orchid, taken in June 2011 near Meall mo Chridh, Kilchoan. These are such spectacularly coloured flowers that I cannot understand why I didn't spot them earlier, particularly as I later found a good-sized colony growing just below the Ferry Stores house where we lived.
Northern Marsh Orchids, Dactylorhiza purpurella
The ones below the Ferry Stores were Northern Marsh-orchids, and this is a good example of the species. As its species name suggests, the flowers are a deep magenta to purple and have distinctly diamond-shaped lips that are only very slightly tri-lobed. The inflorescence - the bundle of flowers - has a flattened top, and the leaves are either unmarked or only sparsely marked with a few spots. June 2012.
This close-up of a Northern Marsh-orchid shows the typical shape of the lip and their spectacular colour. The specimen was found at Sanna, Ardnamurchan, in June 2016.
Northern marsh orchids were the first orchid species we found in the Golspie area. Huge numbers grow on the links at Littleferry, with more near Golspie golf course and three smaller outcrops in the grounds of Dunrobin Castle. June 2020.
Early Purple orchid, Orchis mascula
We found this orchid at Mingary pier in May 2013. At the time I was unable to identify it and I am still far from certain that this is an Early Purple orchid.
It, and others at the pier, were certainly earlier than the other purple orchids, and....
We spotted this Early Purple close to the cliff edge to the north of Aberporth in Pembrokeshire right at the beginning of May 2019, the earliest sighting.
Early Marsh-orchid, Dactylorhiza incarnata
The Early March-orchid in its four subspecies comes in a wide range of colours including creamy white, pink, pale purple and almost red. Dactylorhiza incarnata ssp incarnata, above, as the name suggests, is pale, fleshy pink while ssp pulchella is purple.
The most spectacular of the subspecies is Dactylorhiza incarnata ssp coccinea which is deep red.
The leaves are described as, "bright green; 3-5 broad, keeled sheathing leaves at base of stem, and 1 or 2 non-sheathing leaves higher up."*
The best place to find Early March-orchids is at Sanna on Ardnamurchan, where they are in flower along the track to Sanna Bheag from late May to the end of June.
Frog Orchids
In retrospect, it seems quite ridiculous that it took five years of interest in orchids before we found the first Ardnamurchan Frog Orchid, Dactylorhiza viridis, but for some time we were looking in the wrong place. It turned out that Sanna, which was exceptional rich in many orchid species, also hosted masses of this species - once we knew where and when to look.
We the first frog orchids in July 2015, below Sanna Bheag, close to the beach, and later found another small group further inland.
The whole plant varies in colour from a distinctive brownish-purple through to....
....light green, with gradations between.
The leaves form a small rosette around the bottom of the stem while a further 3 to 5 grow up the stalk.
Lady's Tresses
Irish Lady's Tresses, Spiranthes romansoffiana
In late July 2014 we made the exciting discovery, at the top end of one of the Ormsaigbeg crofts, near the common grazing's fence, of....
....three Irish Lady's Tresses, Spiranthes romanzoffiana. a species which is classified as Nationally Scarce in Britain. Its few European sites are confined to the northwest seaboard of Britain and Ireland, but it is much more common in North America.
It grows on heavily cropped grassland but has a habit of appearing and then disappearing again, as it did with us for, having seen it in 2014 and 2015, it did not reappear even though....
....we protected the plants through the intervening winters from the local sheep - though this may have been a mistake as soil disturbance seems to be something which encourages them.
The leaves of Irish Lady's Tresses are narrow and pointed while....
....the flowers, when properly developed - which ours weren't - coil in three columns around the stem.
Creeping Lady's Tresses, Goodyera repens
Found in Ferry Wood, Littleferry, in late July, this little orchid....
....has all its flowers facing one way.
The flowers are very hairy. It's fairly rare, but common in some parts of Scotland and the north of England. In Ferry Wood, it occurred in small groups of up to six plants, widely scattered in a coniferous plantation..
The flowers form a rosette at the base of the stem.
Pyramidal Orchid
We came across a group of Pyramidal Orchids, Anacamptis pyramidalis, while walking along a disused railway track in Suffolk. They have a very distinctive shape and vary in colour from white through to very pale to very deep pink. The flower head can carry....
....up to a hundred flowers.
The species is confined to the southern half of Britain and Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe.
* courtesy the Hardy Orchid Society website here.
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