Terrestrial orchids 2015

[Tim Harberd]

Hi Ian,
   Your comment ‘It is kept under guard these days’ isn’t quite true…. It’s been guarded for more than a quarter of a century!

   I think the cage was erected mostly to protect from rabbits… In the photo Dad is transferring pollen.. Difficult to do with the cage on!

   Progeny have reportedly been distributed round a dozen of the species old haunts…The Orchid Research Newsletter said of the re-introduction programme (in 2003): “Results are promising, and the number of plants of native origin now growing numbers in the hundreds with flowering plants increasing year-on-year.”

   I had heard it might be back in Clapdale (Ingleborough)..   However it does grow at Kilnsey Park…

http://kilnseypark.co.uk/site/explore/nature-reserve/
http://thedales.org.uk/kilnsey-nature-reserve/
http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/update/2012-05-22/ladys-slipper-orchid-comes-to-yorkshire/



   I’d be more inclined to visit there, rather than increase the pressure on the not so wild site.

Tim DH

[ian mcdonald]

Hello Tim, when I said the plant is kept under guard these days I was talking metaf..         metaph.... well, you know what I mean. The person who told me where to see the plant was used to seeing it in the open. Botanys best known secret? I think Kew have been propagating from this plant and another for some years. Some members of the Hardy Orchid Society were lucky enough to be given young plants to grow on.

[Steve Garvie]

Orchis pauciflora


Calypso bulbosa occidentalis


Diuris amplissima

[Neil]

Hello Tim, when I said the plant is kept under guard these days I was talking metaf..         metaph.... well, you know what I mean. The person who told me where to see the plant was used to seeing it in the open. Botanys best known secret? I think Kew have been propagating from this plant and another for some years. Some members of the Hardy Orchid Society were lucky enough to be given young plants to grow on.

The biggest problem is that the seeds were produced from only one plant and all the plants are technically clones of it.  IMO this could led to problems later down the line due to in breeding.   

[mark smyth]

Steve do you keep your Australian orchids totally frost free?

[Neil]

Steve nice photos as usual.

[Tim Harberd]

Hi Neil,
   I don’t think you are right about the seedlings being ‘selfs’. There are a few cultivated clones of reputedly English provenance. I guess with recent advances in DNA analysis, the confidence in the true origins of some of these may have improved.  Kew has, or had one of these. (Just to complicate things a little further, there was a tale about some well meaning naturalist unilaterally re-introducing European plants to old UK sites!)

Tim DH

[Giles]

The current issue of Curtis's Botanical Magazine (Vol 32, Part 1, February 2015) might be of interest as it is dedicated to The Orchids of The British Isles.
Individual issues can be obtained from the publisher: Wiley/Blackwell.

[Steve Garvie]

Steve do you keep your Australian orchids totally frost free?

Mark, they share a compartment in my greenhouse with Ophrys, Med Orchis and south African amaryllids. The lowest the air temperature has ever dropped to in there has been +0.3C. The plunges are heated (with thermostatic control) and there is a free-standing fan heater which is set to frost-free (very rarely on; during the bad winter of a few years back I worked out that it consumed about £50 of power -which over a year is under £5 per month, most years it is very much less than this).

[Corrado & Rina]

img 3205 is dune helleborine. img 198 is dark red helleborine. img 205 is yellow birds nest. img 199 are marsh orchids, mainly early.

Thanks Ian for the beautiful photographs. I am taking photographs of all orchids in UK, but you have outdone me by far. Thanks for sharing.

Best

Corrado

[Corrado & Rina]

This Orchis anthropomorpha has been flowering for a few weeks already and is looking like it has a few still to go.



Some will remember I posted some habitat photos of this orchid a couple of years ago. The flowers on that site were much lighter.

Habitat 2013

Hi Fred, do you mean it is flowering now?!

Regards

[SteveC2]

In Fred's greenhouse yes.  Mine is about to open.
But wait a couple of months before looking for wild ones.

[fredg]

Hi Fred, do you mean it is flowering now?!

Regards

In a cold greenhouse with all vents open. The habitat photo was taken on the 2nd of July 2013.

[Neil]

The earliest Dactylorhiza to flower here is the pale form of Dactylorhiza romana:

It over-winters in a partially shaded (just) frost-free frame

Steve what soil mixture to grow yours in?  As I have a couple of seedlings that need to be deflasked.

[Maren]

Giles,
thank you for the reference to:

Curtis's Botanical Magazine
Vol 32 (4 Issues in 2015)
Edited by: Martyn Rix
Print ISSN: 1355-4905 Online ISSN: 1467-8748
Published on behalf of Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

I've been trying to buy this but cannot find anyone willing to sell it. Do I have to go to Kew? I wouldn't mind, I'm a Friend anyway and enjoy my visits.