Green-winged Orchid, Anacamptis morio

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Green-winged Orchids, Anacamptis morio.

In mid May, Vanna and I cycled out to New Buckenham Common, a Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve south-west of Norwich, to see Green-winged Orchids, Anacamptis morio.

It was a sunny day and we had a lovely bike ride, via back lanes from the outskirts of Norwich to New Buckehnam, bypassing the south of Wymondham and through Silfield, Wattlefield and Bunwell Bottom, avoiding the busier and hillier ‘B’ road used by most car drivers. I had been going on regular bike rides since the end of March, but it was Vanna’s first trip out since lockdown began in late March, and it was so good for us both to be out and about looking at plants and wildlife.

Although the main object of our visit was to see the Green-winged Orchids (Anacamptis morio) that grow on the Common, we also saw a nice selection of insects. These included numerous Craneflies, Small Yellow Underwing moths and our first Common Blue and Brown Argus butterflies of the year. The ground was much drier than usual after an exceptionally warm and sunny spring, and some of the orchids were already beginning to go to seed.

Green-winged Orchids flower from mid April to June, normally peaking in May, though the plants can flower as early as mid March. They are quite a small orchid (described by Simon Harrap as “dainty, usually petite”), usually 5 – 15cm (2 – 12 inches) tall, with unspotted leaves (note 1).

Green-winged Orchids are very variable in colour and range from a deep violet-purple through to rose-pink or whitish. The photograph above shows a fairly typical specimen. The Wild Flower Finder and Orchids of Britain and Europe websites show a good range of colour variations, and my photograph of a pink form on New Buckenham Common is below.

The orchid’s flower has three sepals and two petals and these form a hood, which is marked with the fine green or bronze veins that give the plant its English name (note 2).

Most Green-winged Orchids have no scent, but some plants with pink or white flowers smell strongly of vanilla, rather like a garden carnation.

Anacamptis morio

A pink form of Green-winged Orchid, Anacamptis morio.

Green-winged Orchids can be found in suitable places in much of England, Wales and Ireland and there are a few sites in south-west Scotland too. Unfortunately the species has declined as suitable sites have steadily been destroyed and old species-rich grasslands have been ploughed up or “improved” (note 3). “Improvement” is death to Anacamptis morio and many other wild flowers.

The orchids survive in the few remaining meadows and on commons and village greens, dunes, in churchyards, on the edges of golf courses, on neutral grassland on heaths, on roadsides, in lawns and in railway cuttings and gravel pits. The plant prefers damp pastures on clay soils but can grow on chalk, or on sands and gravels. It doesn’t like shade, so is seldom found in woodland.

The orchid can also be found elsewhere in Northern Europe. Further south, its relative Anacamptis picta, which is usually shorter and more spindly, seems to replace it, though telling the two species apart is not at all easy.

An older scientific name for Anacamptis morio is Orchis morio. The name change is a result of molecular data and the two genera can’t be distinguished morphologically (note 4).

The Plant Life website tells us more about the Green-winged Orchid’s names. Morio means “fool” and refers to the jester-like motley of the orchid’s green and purple flowers.  In Scotland, the plant’s names apparently include hen’s kames (combs), bull’s bags, dog’s dubbles, keet legs and deid man’s thoombs (dead men’s thumbs)! The generic name Anacamptis comes from the Greek word anakamptein, which means “to bend backwards”.

Many orchids can form hybrids and the Green-winged Orchid is no exception. In the British Isles, hybrids occasionally occur between Anacamptis morio and the Early-Purple Orchid, Orchis mascula. Historically, hybridisation has also occurred with the Loose-Flowered Orchid, Anacamptis laxiflora (in Shetland pre-1986) and with the Heath Spotted-Orchid, Dactylorhiza maculata (in Wiltshire, in 1994).

Green-winged Orchids are perennials and are thought to be long-lived. They are slow to colonise new sites but will spread by seed. Pollination is carried out by bees, especially bumblebees, but the plant doesn’t produce any nectar as a reward. Bees usually visit just a single flower on each of several plants, before moving on to other species with more rewarding flowers. In spite of this, most flowers are pollinated in the UK. Each seed capsule produces around 4,000 seeds. The seeds are very small and light and each needs a mycorrhizal fungus to develop further, but artificial fertilisers kill off many fungi, which is one reason why “improvement” of grassland is such a bad thing for the orchid.

It was good to see Green-winged Orchids again. We used to see them when we cycled in Suffolk, including large numbers at Chippenhall Green near Fressingfield. But New Buckenham Common was the spot where we first saw them, back in the early 1990s. We were given a lift out one evening by a friend  and had a good view of the orchids. But we ended up having to climb over an electric fence to escape some very frisky cattle grazing on the Common. By contrast, our more recent trip was without incident!

Notes

Note 1 – I recommend Simon Harrap’s book “A Pocket Guide to the Orchids of Britain and Ireland” (Bloomsbury, 2016) as a pocket-sized mine of information on British orchids, including lots of photos and information on their distribution and biology. I have taken a lot of my information from this lovely book.

Specimens of Green-winged Orchid can grow to 50cm (20 inches) tall on occasion.

Note 2 – The Early Purple Orchid, Orchis mascula, is superficially similar but its leaves are normally spotted and it is more likely to be found on a woodland ride or at the edge of a wood than the Green-winged Orchid, which grows in grassland such as commons. The flowers lack obvious dark veins on their sepals. Only the upper sepal and petals form the hood of the flower; the two lateral sepals are held upright to form “wings”.

Note 3 – I hate the term “improved” when applied to grassland. It is the verbal equivalent of the ministries in George Orwell’s “1984”, meaning the exact opposite for those of us who love the natural world. The natural diversity of grassland is deliberately reduced to provide lusher grassland for livestock, by applying artificial fertilisers or even ploughing and re-seeding. The result is a bright green sward dominated by Perennial Rye Grass (Lolium perenne) and with a very limited number and range of flowers.

See “B4 – Improved Grassland” on Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Habitat Definitions and Coding handout for more information on how to recognise this damaged grassland.

“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.”

Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi“.

Note 4 – Clive Stace, “New Flora of the British Isles“. Fourth Edition, 2019.

Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes

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Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes

Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, growing in the mini-meadow in our back garden.

Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, is in full flower at the moment. The plant is like a fuzzy, soft focus version of Lady’s Bedstraw, Galium verum, which I wrote about last July.

Both plants are perennial members of the Bedstraw family, the Rubiaceae. Both have whorls of leaves and flowers but Crosswort has softer, wider, paler green leaves in whorls of four rather than the six to eight thinner, darker green leaves of Lady’s Bedstraw. Crosswort is altogether a softer, floppier plant than Lady’s Bedstraw.  Lady’s Bedstraw has bright yellow flowers, while Crosswort’s flowers are a paler yellow. Lady’s Bedstraw smells of new-mown hay when in flower; Crosswort’s flowers have the delicious scent of honey.

Crosswort is a British native wild flower of well-drained neutral or calcareous soils. It can be found growing on road verges and in hedge banks, in ungrazed grassland, in open scrub and on woodland rides and edges. It becomes scarce from central Scotland northwards and is rare in Ireland, where it is considered to be an introduction. The plant occurs throughout much of Europe as well as in northern Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, and the western Himalayas. It has also been introduced to parts of New York state (Ontario county) in the United States.

Considering that the Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora shows records for Crosswort across much of England and Wales, it is a plant I rarely see growing wild here in Norfolk, perhaps because it prefers calcareous soils.

My first encounter with Crosswort was on a road verge just outside Edinburgh in 1983, where I knew it by its old name, Cruciata ciliata. (Another former name is Galium cruciata.) In Norfolk I have seen it growing on a couple of road verges, near Metton in North Norfolk and recently just north of New Buckenham (note 1).

I have several patches of Crosswort in the garden, all of which came from a single pot-grown plant bought from Natural Surroundings in North Norfolk in 2013. Planted in fertile sandy loam in a border, my Crosswort grew and grew, spreading through the border. I removed most of it but the smallest pieces grew back. Something similar has happened in the border at the far end of the garden. Crosswort is a tough, hardy plant and definitely likes its growing conditions here, happily tolerating the winter shade in our north-facing back garden and regular droughts. I am happy for it to spread, up to a point, not only for its glorious flowers but because its dense ground-hugging habit provides lots of cover for spiders and insects. But after flowering I pull out excess handfuls of it.

The Scottish Wildflowers website says that Crosswort’s flowers “are followed by black berries, about as large as currants, which remain attached to the plant till late in winter”. This is true for Crosswort’s relative Wild Madder, Rubia peregrina, but not for Crosswort, which has one or two inconspicuous nutlets.

Crosswort is also known as Smooth Bedstraw, Maywort and Maiden’s Hair. Its Scots Gaelic name is Luc Na Croise. Cruciata means crucified and laevipes refers to Crosswort’s smooth stalks.

Crosswort has been used medicinally and the Plants For A Future website lists several past uses. These include the treatment of wounds and obstructions of the stomach and bowels. The plant was also used to stimulate the appetite and to treat rheumatism, rupture and dropsy. The leaves are edible raw or cooked, though I haven’t tried them.

As ever, the Wildflower Finder website has a series of excellent photographs of the plant, which I recommend.

Notes

Note 1 – Thanks to Mike Ball for telling me of two more Norfolk sites for Crosswort: on the road leading out of Hanworth towards Sustead and on Emery’s Lane at Hanworth.

Balm-leaved Archangel, Lamium orvala

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Lamium orvala

Balm-leaved Archangel, Lamium orvala, in close up.

The garden is full of beauty at the moment, as spring reaches its peak. Today it is raining, and this rare event should refresh and rejuvenate after weeks of warmth and sunshine.

One of the many plants in flower at the moment is Balm-leaved Archangel, Lamium orvala, also known as Balm-leaved Red Deadnettle. It is by no means the showiest plant in the garden, compared with the ‘Canary Bird’ rose, the huge Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris) in both ponds, or the tumbling masses of our Clematis alpina ‘Helsingborg’ and Clematis motana ‘Mayleen’. I only have the one plant and it almost hides in the border. But close up, the flowers have a rich beauty all of their own.

Lamium orvala is a member of the family Lamiaceae, a relative of the lovely White Deadnettle (Lamium album), and the Red Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum), one of my favourite flowers, which I wrote about in April 2012.

I first saw Lamium orvala at Chestnut Farm, West Beckham, a lovely North Norfolk garden that is sometimes open for the National Gardens Scheme, where it was providing ground cover beneath a tree. Later, when I had a chance to buy a plant, I did.

Lamium orvala is a herbaceous perennial which flowers in spring (April and May, even in June in some places). Its leaves are larger and lusher than those of White or Red Deadnettles, with prominent veins, giving them an almost quilt-like appearance, and finely toothed leaf margins. The flowers are sumptuous, a deep dusky pink, with an especially lovely flared, spotted lower lip. They have been described as being “almost orchid-like“. They should be attractive to bees, but in our garden bees visit Red and White Deadnettles instead, probably because we grow more of them, in sunnier parts of the garden.

The plant likes damp shade or semi-shade. I grow it in semi-shade and my soil is a bit too well drained to be ideal but nonetheless my plant keeps going year after year. It is in the middle of the border, where it is hidden by other plant growth once the flowers are finished, and this also protects it to some extent from summer’s heat and drought. It is very hardy, with a UK hardiness rating of H7, tolerating temperatures of -20 Celsius or lower.

Lamium orvala is a native of central eastern Europe: parts of Austria, Italy, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine and Moldova. The NBN Atlas has a couple of distribution spots for the plant growing wild in Britain, but you are really only likely to find it in gardens in the UK. It has a neat clump-forming growth habit and therefore is unlikely to outstay its welcome and become a garden throw-out.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Master Gardener Program website has some more useful information, including propagation tips. It also mentions a white-flowered form, ‘Alba’. Both this and the Gardeners’ World website have suggestions for plants that Lamium orvala can be combined with in the garden.

The BBC Gardeners’ World website says that Lamium orvala can be toxic to livestock and horses, but gives no further details. I can’t find any information on the Plants For A Future website, either.

There are some good photographs of the plant on the Royal College of Physicians’ Garden of Medicinal Plants website. Medicinal information is scarce, however, and the site references Dr. Henry F. Oakley’s Wellcome Library notes, in which he says “I can find no information about it.”

Best to treat it as ornamental only, which is fine by me.