I have had more than my fair share of wild goose chases when it comes to spotting wildlife. Whether it’s standing in the freezing cold at dusk waiting for a murmuration to be greeted by a flock of twenty birds, spending endless hours searching bogs and heaths for adders or walking up hills in the middle of the night, searching out glowworms only to find two tiny fading lights, I seem to be plagued with bad spotting karma. Generally I’m too early, too late or just plain unlucky. It’s for this reason I try not to make the spectacle the main aim of any visit. Sure it would be great if the murmuration turned up but it’s also lovely to go wandering through a reedbed. So as my boyfriend and I headed out in search of the rare orchid autumn lady’s tresses I really didn’t expect us to have any luck, and was more looking forward to wandering through the beautiful Wildlife Trust reserve at Llanymynech (I have only recently learnt how to pronounce Welsh place names but places like this still get me tongue-tied).
Autumn lady’s tresses is one of the UK’s rarer species of orchid, scattered here and there throughout England and Wales, with its northern most point the Isle of Man. It’s one of only three species of Lady’s Tresses in Europe, with Irish lady’s tresses and summer lady’s tresses being the other two. Across the globe however there are 45 species. Autumn lady’s tresses is fairly well-spread across the globe, from Europe to Africa to Asia, yet it is still considered at risk of decline due to its slow growth and spread.
The UK contains only two of the European species, with Irish lady’s tresses being confined to Ireland and Scotland. This, and its later bloom in August to October, mean there is really nothing else you could confuse with the Autumn version in England. Although having a similar title, creeping lady’s tresses is in fact in a completely different family. The similarity in these two slender, white-flowered plants is only passing and indeed creeping lady’s tresses is even rarer than our autumn orchid, growing in well established undisturbed forests and not coping well with fire or logging.
Llanymynech reserve is quite stunning, being made up of large limestone cliffs, tinged red by nature and dusted with white from climbers chalky grasping fingers. The calcareous grassland here is rich in wildflowers in the summer, and even in late August white wild carrot, purple knapweed and red bartsia jostled with dozens of other colourful species. Its wonderful wildflowers also attract butterflies, with tiny common blues, orange small heath and large whites persisting even during our late visit. Paths wind their way through woodland towards the old quarry, once worked hard to fill the lime kilns which can still be seen scattered through the trees. Climbing up higher you come to the top of the cliffs, to dizzying drops and glorious views across the Welsh and Shropshire landscapes. Footfall is high for good reason but the terrain allows for some areas to be worn bear whilst other steeper slopes remain unspoilt. It must be one of my favourite nature reserves in the country, and I’ve seen a lot.
With all this colour and thick chaotic vegetation you can understand why I doubted we would be able to find the delicate lady’s tresses. Only some 10-15cm high its pale white flowers form a gentle spiral about its column. Small scale-like leaves climb up its body whilst fat round basal leaves whither prior to the growth of the flower stem, slowly regrowing during it’s bloom. Yet it wasn’t just its tiny size which had me doubting we would strike gold. Lady’s tresses is in fact very long-lived for such a tiny flower, with the first eight years of its life being entirely underground. Even once it emerged it only blooms through the autumn, the rest of the year its small basal leaves being the only indication it is still there. It doesn’t even choose to bloom each year, resting when conditions are poor. If we were too early, or the orchid were sleeping out a bad summer, there would be almost nothing to see. Indeed our only indication that they were even here was a newsletter some three years back which spoke of a solitary three specimens being found by avid orchid hunters. I am not an avid hunter. I get bored.
Lady’s tresses is surprisingly diverse in where it grows, appearing on chalk grassland, sand dunes, heath, gardens and even on a stone wall. It’s main requirements are for low nitrate and phosphate levels, moist but not too wet conditions and relatively short surrounding vegetation. Whilst this may not seem too overly fussy the rate at which humans have dumped nitrates and phosphates onto the landscape, from car fumes, industry and farming, there are in fact few places now naturally low in these nutrients across the UK. Indeed many scientists have serious concerns for those plant species requiring low nitrate habitats as airborne nitrates are falling fast and thick from our polluted sky’s.
Surprisingly this tiny orchid is designed to be pollinated by bumblebees, which land at its base and then climb ever higher, sucking the nectar from each flower as they go. To look at it you would think it would bend over backwards once the bee reached the top. Yet even the direction of the spiral is supposed to be designed for the bumbles, who apparently prefer flowers which twist anticlockwise.
The light was beautiful as we entered the reserve for our evening walk. A pair of climbers scaled the heights above us as we bent our heads to the ground around the shorter patches of grass. Pale eyebrights and dried grasses, their seeds hanging limply to one side, caught my eye more than once and mentally I had a note not to waste too much time on this fool’s errand before we climbed the slopes up to the viewpoint. Chris has head out across another area, whilst I explored a particularly unpromising. Not far from the climbers old campfires it looked too well trampled to contain anything of interest. I was only half looking, musing more on the sparrowhawk I had seen take off from the cliffs above us, when something caught the corner of my eye. I yelped with surprise (I really did) and bent to look closer, thinking I must have been mistaken. Yet the tiny twisted stem looked up at me defiantly. I called Chris over and settled myself down to more carefully inspect the bloom. We were in luck, it was already covered in tiny white flowers. As Chris arrived we found another, then another, then another. Totalling seven perfect little blooms. No matter were we looked on the rest of the reserve this was the only spot we saw them, so close to destruction beneath unknowing feet.
We stayed quite a while to enjoy the blooms, after all I had no idea when I would next see these wonderful little flowers. Now my only true regret is that I didn’t breathe in the orchids perfume, which is likened by some to vanilla or almond. We wandered across the rest of the reserve happy with our find but also enjoying the more common harebells, bird’s foot trefoils and traveller’s joy. It just goes to show you never know when something wonderful will come your way, which is why even the wildest goose chase is worth giving a chance.
A year of firsts 