Valley Orchid.

 

Pyramidal Orchid.  Photo. John Elliott

 

Every so often a new species is added to the valley flora, and it was exciting therefore to find last week the first orchid that I have seen here, a Pyramidal Orchid Anacamptis pyramidalis.  It doesn't seem to have been recorded here before. The nearest ones I know of are on the Weymouth Relief Road where the Pyramidal Orchid was the first to arrive after the road was constructed. Orchid seed is very fine and produced by the million and could easily have been wind blown from the Relief Road. There the Pyramidal was quickly followed by Bee Orchids which have proved prolific and now number in their thousands. Are we about to be invaded by a horde of Bee Orchids?

I am not disclosing the exact location of this flower as, all to often elsewhere, keen gardeners have dug them up and they do not transplant.