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The Orchid Outlaw: On a Mission to Save Britain's Rarest Flowers

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Even more remarkable is the fact that although Bee orchids evolved this specialised method of pollination, in the absence of their pollinators they further adapted to be able to pollinate themselves. Several varieties of Bee can be found on Minchinhampton Common, alongside the lilac steeples of Chalk Fragrant-orchids with their strong, sweet perfume, and the green-flowered Frog orchid, which, in recent years, has become increasingly rare. Greater Butterfly orchids with flowers like pale green winged serpents also grow there. At night they emit a scent of lilies. Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’ In the shady depths of beech forests, the otherworldly bird’s-nest (named after its scruffy, nest-like rhizomes) lives underground without sunlight, only sending its spikes of bone-coloured flowers into the daylight. Our two species of butterfly orchid — the increasingly rare lesser butterfly and commoner greater butterfly — have flowers like winged serpents sculpted by Dalí out of lemon meringue. They are pollinated by night-flying moths attracted to their lily-like scent and the ethereal glow they produce by moon and starlight. In contrast, the lizard orchid has been said to smell of goat and can have yard-high banners smothered in twisted petals like lizards’ tails. Ghost orchids (Epipogium aphyllum) have not been seen in the wild in Britain for 13 years. Credit: Alamy

The Orchid Outlaw | Fox Lane Books The Orchid Outlaw | Fox Lane Books

Apart from a few concerned scientists, conservationists and enthusiasts, these disappearances receive little attention. For this reason, raising awareness of Britain’s orchids is more than about saving some beauty in the wild; it is about protecting and preserving the rich tapestry of our natural heritage for future generations. Today managed by the National Trust, perched on the Cotswold escarpment, Minchinhampton Common’s grassland (once upon a time part of an Iron-Age Fort, a wooded landscape then partially quarried centuries ago) is a good place to look for Bee orchids rising from the grass like newly-polished velveteen gems. Each of these little jewels is a flower designed to look, feel, and even smell like a female bee sitting among pink petals to attract amorous males to mate with it. This process, known as “pseudocopulation”, is intended to get the flower pollinated without it having to produce nectar. By now you are probably working out that Ben Jacobs is covering a lot of ground in this book. Law, science, and simple botany, plus habitat niceties, policy of local government officers and other groundkeepers… and did I say simple botany? Orchids are anything but simple. They are the most amazing, most complicated flowering plants you can imagine, and it turns out they even have their own mycorrhizal fungi they like to cohabit with ( like trees). These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience – the local community.

My 40-year odyssey turning a field into a wildflower meadow that’s a buzzing, humming, fluttering world An area arguably unmatched for British flora, it boasts early purple, chalk fragrant, common twayblade, common spotted, northern marsh and early marsh, lesser and greater butterfly, and the scarce dark-red helleborine. Feoch Meadows, Ayrshire One of Britain’s first-flowering varieties is the early purple orchid (Orchis mascula), found in ancient woodlands and meadows. Obsessed by orchids since childhood, Ben spent years travelling to far-flung jungles to see them in the wild. Then a chance encounter set him off on a journey of discovery into the wonderful, but often forgotten, world of Britain’s fifty-one native species. These include the Bee which looks (and smells) so much like one that even bees are fooled, the Ghost which exists without sunlight, and Autumn Lady’s Tresses which gave Darwin the proof he needed for his theory of evolution. Obsessed by orchids since childhood, Ben spent his twenties travelling to far-flung jungles to see them in the wild. Returning to the UK, he was entranced to discover our fifty-one native species and their exotic stories: the Bee whose flower looks (and smells) so much like one that even bees are fooled, the Ghost which exists without direct sunlight, and the Autumn Lady’s-tresses that helped Darwin work out his theory of evolution.

The Orchid Outlaw: On a Mission to Save Britain’s Rarest

The land at Cleeve Common has been left largely unchanged for centuries, and offers good opportunities for spotting orchids. (c) Getty Images The flowers of the man orchid (Orchis anthropophora) resemble people with stumpy limbs and a hood. Credit: Linda Pitkin / naturepl.com Saving Britain’s orchids is about more than beauty in the wild; it is about protecting and preserving the rich tapestry of our natural heritage’The endangered red helleborine (Cephalanthera rubra), one of Britain’s rarest plants. Credit: Getty The Law Commission reached the same conclusion in 2015 when it suggested an overhaul of our wildlife laws. The Home Secretary turned down the idea. What can you do when the government doesn’t (surprise, surprise) listen? You can sit at home grumbling. Or you can quietly step in to do what the law should. The irony is that while the Act excuses “lawful” operations from destroying threatened species, it doesn’t extend that kind of grace to an unauthorised individual digging up a plant. Britain’s orchids are in decline — some are seeing a gradual slide towards extinction and others a recent population collapse. This is a consequence of a shift made about two centuries ago from millennia-old forms of land management to industrialisation. Over this period, clear-felling of ancient woodland, ploughing grasslands, draining marshes, urbanisation and the proliferation of chemicals in the earth, water and air have occurred on an unprecedented scale. Many of these factors have been enabled by feeble environmental legislation. Jacob tells us many times that he is ‘saving’ Britain’s native orchid population (which consists of fifty-one species, many endangered) at considerable personal risk. The problem is that orchids are fussy in terms of habitat and die out easily. Many have difficulty propagating themselves (even Darwin was flummoxed as to why). It means that species such as the rare Monkey Orchid, whose flowers really do look like little monkeys, and the rarest of all, the aptly named Ghost Orchid (last seen in Britain in 2009), find themselves nearing extinction in the wild. You can’t buy wild orchids from nurseries and their low-key charms are in any case somewhat recherché – ‘quirky, surprising, unconventional’, as Jacob puts it. The orchid has always been a Eileen M Hunt: Feminism vs Big Brother - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder; Julia by Sandra Newman

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