Wild Orchids of Britain (Collins New Naturalist Library, Volume 19)
V. S. Summerhayes
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: B01M68XHAW
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A treasure for all lovers of wild plants -- Wild Orchids of Britain provides a detailed account of all our orchid species, varieties and hybrids, and has a useful key to identification. This edition is exclusive to newnaturalists.com Now published in ebook format, with a complete set of new distribution maps from the Atlas of the British Flora, this beautiful book remains the standard work in its subject, a treasure for all lovers of wild plants. Dr. Dummerhayes, in charge of the orchid collection at Kew from 1924 to 1964, looks at our fifty-odd species in relation to the vast orchid family throughout the world, discusses their general biology and natural history in Britain, gives a detailed account of all our orchid species, varieties and hybrids, and provides a useful key to identification. The colour photographs represent every known British species with the exception of Orchis cruenta and O. occidentalis.
the stem above them. The flower-spike, which is much narrower than in the greater butterfly orchid, contains from five to fifteen flowers. The flowers vary from white to cream coloured, or are even tinged greenish, the spur being often greener than the rest of the flower. A powerful and very sweet scent is emitted both by day and by night, but usually more strongly at night. The back sepal and the two petals form a sort of hood over the column, the lateral sepals spread out sideways, while the
nine leaves scattered along the lower part of the stem, the lower ones sometimes almost forming a kind of rosette. These leaves are more or less spreading (nothing like so erect as in 0. latifolia), dark or grey-green, with a broadly hooded tip; they are either unspotted or more usually have rather few very small almost pinpoint solid spots, which are more abundant near the tip. Forms with more heavily spotted leaves are known from eastern and northern Scotland, but these are rather local and may
extraordinary distributions mentioned previously, namely, those of the dense-flowered orchid and of the Irish ladies’ tresses. It is extremely difficult to see how these two species can have migrated directly to Ireland from their main centres of distribution since the Glacial Period. The explanation is much easier if it be assumed that they have been here all along. There is geological evidence that the western parts of the British Isles were once connected directly with what is now western
having been largely increased as a result of extensive felling during the two wars. Much of the scrub on chalk soils, however, is the result of the opposite process, that is to say, it represents the invasion of grassland by bush and tree species, and the gradual conversion of downland into woodland. In the present climate of England this is a natural process, which may be happening in many places and not only on chalk or even other limestone soils. Now it is clear that the past history of any
obtain food merely to feed the orchid?” Formerly the association was looked upon as a sort of mutual aid, the orchid, according to this view, receiving the food and the fungus some other advantage, such as protection from insect enemies or unfavourable climatic conditions. Indeed it seems probable that the fungus does obtain certain food substances from the orchid, which it could not obtain from other sources. Careful investigation has, however, indicated that fundamentally the explanation is