Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

The white flower is a greater butterfly orchid and grows on the edges of woodland here and there in Sussex, on or near the chalk.

It is one of the most feminine looking flowers of all: the sort of white innocence that would have got all the Victorian artists aglow with passion suppressed by honeur aux dames for such a display of fragrant and transcendental beauty.

There they all await you, these damsels with their white arms wide for imminent embrace, their pale but perfectly complexioned faces capped by demure bonnets, yet their lower bodies thrust forward for sweet union; a kind of corps de ballet from Swan Lake.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette June 18