Midsummer orchids
On way back from Scops Owl twitch we stopped on good orchid area to see if flower season has started. Best season is clearly still a head. Only Lesser Butterfly-orchids were in full bloom.
There were lots of Broad-leaved Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine) stems. None of them had open flowers yet. After week or two should be good time to come again. In this area there are also totally chlorotic plants. This year there seemed to be fewer than before. I managed to find ten stems or stem groups. Many of them were very small and probable they wont flower at all. Few larger ones had buds. Hopefully there will be flowers this year. If summer is dry mushroom mycorrhiza cant feed plant enough and orchid won’t grow.
White Adder’s Mouth (Malaxis monophyllos) does not have good year. There has been forest cuts in its growing area. This time I managed to find only one plant and few leafs that might belong to this species. This growing site is not normal for this species. Usually it should grow in bogs, but here it grows in moist spot on rocky area.
In same spot there was several Frog Orchids (Coeloglossum viridae). I had missed this species before in this location.
First Heath Spotted Orchids had flowers too. Angular Solomon’s-seals do grow in rocky places.
European Common Twayblade is common in this area. Stems were big already and first flowers open. One of most visible pant in the area is Round-leaved Wintergreen that was in full bloom. There was several other Wintergreen species too.
During the trip we also visited forest of Northern Wolfsbane. This plant is very rare in Finland and there is only few spots were it grows. It grows up to two meters high. Most of plants had only buds, but luckily there were couple of stems that had open flowers.
