A Swarm of Orchids

 Last week - when the weather was a bit drier - I went for  walk up the track from Tromie bridge  to Killiehuntly, just for the walk with no plans of botanising.  But I can't help looking...

To my surprise I found 2 fields on either side of the track with plentiful orchids, in flower, which seems quite late for this year. Not only were they plentiful, they were big and sturdy and on taking a closer look, I couldn't quite place them in a single species.  Because they were puzzling, I went back a day or so later and took photos and measurements of some important features.

First of all, I took a photo against a clipboard marked in 1cm squares, to give an idea of the scale. You can see that the biggest one in the photo is about 30cm tall.

I also squeezed the stem to check whether it was hollow or solid - you don't need to pick or cut the plant, as it is easy to tell if it gives a bit. (Spotted-orchids have solid stems and Marsh-orchids have hollow ones.)

The leaves were wide and unspotted (unsurprisingly, Spotted-orchids have skinny spotty leaves).

So far this seems to fit Northern Marsh-orchid (Dactylorhiza purpurella) though it is much bigger and flowering later than I would expect.  So let's check the flowers.  The shape of the flowers is really important in distinguishing between orchid species, especially the front lip of the flower.

A diamond shaped petal

This plant has a diamond shaped front petal (called the labellum)  which is characteristic of Northern Marsh-orchid - but it is the wrong colour. I would have expected it to be a dark beetrooty purple, whereas this lighter pink is typical of the Heath Spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata). Some of the flowers did have the petal shape of the Heath Spotted-orchid, with a little tooth in the centre:

A lobe (tooth) in the centre of the petal

but then it did not have the spotty leaves.

So I came to the conclusion that maybe it was a hybrid between the 2 species i.e. Dactylorhiza x formosa = dac. maculata x purpurella.  In order to check, I sent the details to the orchid referee Richard Bateman (the expert) at Kew and was delighted that he confirmed they were the hybrid. Richard is one of the many professional botanists who volunteer their time and expertise to check amateur observations.

I have never seen so many hybrids in one spot (there were well over 100). Although hybrids are known for their vigour, they are not always fertile.  It seems that this strain was and has produced many offspring in the same place (an orchid swarm). I was surprised that no-one had recorded orchids in this spot before, and I have sent off the records to go on the BSBI database.

Candy Striped spiders?

It is hard to believe that it is a month since my last blog post.  I have the slight excuse of going on holiday for a week and a week of intensive gardening beforehand trying to catch up with jobs that needed doing before I went away.

When I got back from my holiday I went for a walk to see if the orchids were still around and managed to find plenty on Newtonmore Golf Course and even some round Loch Imrich. The ones round Loch Imrich were Common Spotted Orchids (the leaves are spotted as well) and is uncommon locally as it prefers non-acid soils.

Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii) 

On the Golf course, the orchids were interspersed with yellow Lady's Bedstraw (Galium verum).

Lady's bedstraw with Fragrant Orchids at the front and a Greater Butterfly Orchid at the back.

Orchids - left to right -  Small-white, Fragrant and Greater Butterfly

Whilst I was away, my row of Chard had started to bolt and needed picking.  I know it as "Silver beet" which is the name I learnt for it when I lived in New Zealand.  I am not a great fan of it, but the packet of seed said it was beetroot so I was a bit surprised when it came up as chard!  Anyway, when I picked it I found 2 spiders amongst the foliage. One was quite striking as it had two red stripes on its abdomen. I put each one in a small container and tried to take a decent picture - not very successfully I'm afraid.  The bright red stripes don't look very vivid in the photo, though its reflection in the container wall looks very scary!

The second spider looked very different but turned out to be the same species.

I think they are both Candy striped spiders (Enoplognatha ovata) which comes in three colour forms.  The red striped one is called the redimita morph and the greenish one is called the lineata morph.  There is a third pattern which I have not seen yet which is all red on the back.  There is lots of information here.

I read that they produce blue egg sacs, and surprisingly I found one today on my blackcurrant bush. It really is an amazing colour.

These spiders like low growing vegetation and are quite likely to be in your garden, so keep yours eyes open and you might find one.

Update - found another one today on the blackcurrants so took a better photo in the sunshine.