Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

WHAT do the Red Arrows and pyramid orchids have in common? Shape, colour, and life inside them. They also had Goodwood's Trundle Iron Age fort in common.

WHAT do the Red Arrows and pyramid orchids have in common? Shape, colour, and life inside them. They also had Goodwood's Trundle Iron Age fort in common.

They appeared there together for several years during the annual firework display at the horse racing course, in July. While the Hawks with their pilots buzzed the hilltop and generally aeronauted themselves in unbelievably tight circles, rolls, loops and dives to the huge delight of the crowds below, the pyramid orchids stood upright on the ground echoing the shapes of these magnificent men in their flying machines overhead.

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I often wonder if I was the only one who noticed this similarity. There are about 26 species of wild orchids growing in Sussex. You never know from year to year whether some are going to be there or not. They are temperamental plants with very complicated lives. So the list of species that may be present each year varies. Those like the lizard orchid for instance used to be common in one location but has all but disappeared from the county.

About 38 species of orchids have been recorded in the past 100 years but some are long gone. Many orchids hybridise and it is not often clear as to which variant you have before you. But one you can depend upon all along the chalk ridge of the South Downs is the pyramidal orchid.

A few are also found in the Weald in about five locations. They like really dry well-drained chalk soil which usually faces south. Thus the ramparts of the Iron Age fort known as the Trundle suit them down to the ground. The flower spike may hold over 100 florets of shocking pink, each with its little pink fat man shape, each with a store of nectar and pollen.

The shape of the cluster usually forms a pyramid, it is all held aloft on a spindly pale green stem.

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The lower part of the flower is called the lip and this has two small erect ridges to guide visiting insects into the spur, which is very long and thin and hangs down like a tail but is part filled with a form of nectar.

Hawk aeroplanes may be complicated, but these flowers took millions of years to design and they do their display all by themselves. Both are fascinating.

This feature first appeared in the West Sussex Gazette July 2