We've been on orchid watch for some weeks now, at a particular grass verge along an main road that we drive down regularly. The patch in question is next to a woodland owned by Dorset Wildlife Trust and so we can thank them for this particularly beautiful little patch.
The orchid in question is an Early Purple Orchid, (Orchis mascula) which, as well as sounding great in Scottish, is one of those plants that I strongly suspect was named on a Friday afternoon. ("It sprouts early and it's purple. That's good enough, isn't it? Right, let's get to the pub.") To photograph it without accidentally destroying any more more orchids involved walking down the main road, then finding a gap in the traffic to crouch down to take the pic. These are just some of the risks I am prepared to take to to write this blog.
And, having risked certain death on a main road, we may as well nip in for a poke around the woods, with it's carpet of bluebells and wood anemone, plus a fallen oak tree that seemed far too good timber to waste on beetles! Kudos all round to the DWT. If you want to have a look yourself, it's called Ashley Wood and is near Tarrant Keynestone:
http://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/Ashley_Wood_Nature_Reserve.html
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