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This orchid's pink to pale lilac flower spikes, marked with darker spots and loops, appear from June to July above leaves usually blotched with dark spots. Its flowers attract bees, flies and other insects, though they offer no nectar. Its genus name, Dactylorhiza, means "finger root," from its tubers, which are divided like fingers.
Like all orchids, it depends on fungi. Its dust-like seeds carry almost no food, so they can only germinate with the help of a soil fungus, which feeds the seedling underground for its first years. Carried far on the wind, the seeds readily reach former colliery sites, where thin, low-nutrient soils keep coarse grasses in check. Disturbed industrial ground can suit it better than fertile farmland, and old spoil can hold large numbers.
Above the old mine workings, its flowers depend on an unseen network of fungal threads running through the ground.
This orchid's pink to pale lilac flower spikes, marked with darker spots and loops, appear from June to July above leaves usually blotched with dark spots. Its flowers attract bees, flies and other insects, though they offer no nectar. Its genus name, Dactylorhiza, means "finger root," from its tubers, which are divided like fingers.
Like all orchids, it depends on fungi. Its dust-like seeds carry almost no food, so they can only germinate with the help of a soil fungus, which feeds the seedling underground for its first years. Carried far on the wind, the seeds readily reach former colliery sites, where thin, low-nutrient soils keep coarse grasses in check. Disturbed industrial ground can suit it better than fertile farmland, and old spoil can hold large numbers.
Above the old mine workings, its flowers depend on an unseen network of fungal threads running through the ground.