Common Spotted-Orchid

Dactylorhiza fuchsii

Orchidaceae

29th May 2020

It was only a couple of years ago that I learnt that this pretty little plant was an orchid, I still can’t quite believe it. To me orchids had always seemed a hard to keep alive, sensitive plant from tropical lands, that you kept in your house, and fed an ice cube once a week in the hope of sustaining life.  But this little purple flowered plant grows all over the garden, very happily enjoying the wild, and is the most prolific type of orchid to be found growing naturally in Britian. 

You need to look close and really inspect them, to see flowers a little like a ruffled skirt and the striking darker purple markings on the petals.  

Collins says ‘Orchid of grassland and open woods on calcerous or neutral soils. FLOWERS Varying in colour from plant to plant, ranging from pale pink to pinkish purple; darker streaks and spots on lower lips, which has 3 even sized lobes and is 1cm across; in open spikes’  

The key piece of information however is ‘LEAVES green, glossy, dark spotted’ as it is from these spots they get their name from, not, as I assumed, the spot-like markings on their petals.

They always look to me to be fairly robust, happily popping up all over-the place.  And they flower from May to August so there is the chance to see lots.

Alice x