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Burnt-tip Orchid

Neotinea ustulata

Burnt-tip Orchid is a white orchid with a deep crimson peak – the “burnt tip” in question.

How to spot it

This small orchid can be difficult to spot. Plants grow from a tuber which is replaced each year and tend to grow in small clumps. Pale green leaves form a rosette from which a flower spike holding between 15-50 flowers emerges.

Where to spot it

Burnt-tip Orchid is confined to a scattering of sites in southern England, especially the Wiltshire Downs. It is found in short, chalk downland turf, and occasionally strays into meadows.

How’s it doing?

Burnt-tip Orchid was once more common and its scarce population continues to decline. This decline is due to changes in agricultural practices.

Things you might not know

  • Burnt-tip Orchid is the County Flower of Wiltshire, where the largest colonies can be found.
  • The flowers smell of honey but produce no nectar.
  • Ustulata comes from the Latin word ustulus which means ‘slightly burnt.’

Other Species

Sweet Violet

Viola odorata

Sweet Violet is a low, creeping plant with fragrant flowers, usually blue-violet or white. It has a long and rather romantic history in European and Asian folklore: the ancient Greeks first used it to make perfume and the Romans to make wine. Ancient Britons used it for cosmetics. Medieval French troubadours used it to represent constancy in their tales of chivalrous love.

How to spot it

Sweet violet’s leaves are broad and glossy and like the stems are covered with fine hairs. Both flowers and leaves grow from a central tuft.

Where to spot it

Sweet Violet is widespread throughout most of England, although it’s less widespread in the north. In Scotland and Wales its distribution is even patchier: a wildflower of woodland margins and shady hedgerows, it tends to avoid the more mountainous regions.

When to spot it

The best time to see Sweet Violet is from March to May.

Photograph shows a close up on a Sweet Violet flower. The flower head droops slightly towards the ground. It is a beautiful rich purple in colour, shown against green leaves and grasses in the background.

Things you might not know

  • One of the key threats to Sweet Violet is loss of the habitat, particularly destruction of hedgerows.
  • Josephine threw Napolean a posy of sweet violets when they first met. After he was defeated at Waterloo he was permitted to visit her grave one last time before he was sent to St Helena. He found sweet violets growing there and picked a few. Upon his death these were found in a locket around his neck.
  • There is a legend that you can only smell violet flowers once – this is untrue, but has its basis in a quirk of evolution. Ionine, one of the chemicals that makes up the Sweet Violet’s scent, has the power to deaden the smell receptors once its been sniffed.

Other Species

Red Dead-nettle

Lamium purpureum

Red Dead-nettle is traditionally known as the ‘bumblebee flower’ in some British counties as bumblebees love it! Other names include ‘sweet archangel’ and ‘bad man’s posies’. Red Dead-nettle is related to the stinging nettle but has no sting – hence the ‘dead’ in ‘dead-nettle’.

How to spot it

Red Dead-nettle has whorls of pink-purple flowers clustered amongst leaves towards the top of the plant. The aromatic leaves are hairy, heart-shaped and have toothed edges. Some leaves near the top of the plant take on a purple tint. This plant can be mistaken for henbit dead-nettle which has similar flowers. They can be differentiated because Red Dead-nettle leaves have short petioles (leaf stalks).

Where to spot it

Found throughout the UK, Red Dead-nettle likes arable and waste land and can also be found in gardens, hedgerows and on roadsides.

Best time to spot it

Red Dead-nettle has a long flowering season that can begin in February and last until November.

Things you might not know

  • The generic name is from the Greek lamia meaning ‘devouring monster’. This refers to the helmet shape (galeate) of the flower which has the appearance of open jaws.
  • The vernacular name ‘Archangel’ may refer to their virtue of being non-stinging.
  • It is likely that this plant was introduced to Britain with early agriculture and evidence for it has been found in Bronze Age deposits.
  • The whole plant is astringent, diaphoretic, diuretic, purgative and styptic. In terms of traditional medicinal uses, dried leaves have been used as a poultice to stem hemorrhaging whilst fresh bruised leaves have been applied to external wounds and cuts. The leaves are also made into a tea and drunk to promote perspiration and discharge from the kidneys in treating chills.

Other Species

Lady Orchid

Orchis purpurea 

Close up of multiple pink-purple Lady Orchids amongst foliage
A single white-purple lady orchid flower spike on a blurred background

The Lady Orchid is a tall, elegant herbaceous plant belonging to the Orchidaceae plant family.

How to spot it

Lady Orchid can reach 30–100 centimetres with the fleshy, bright green leaves being up to 15 cm long. The leaves are broad and oblong, forming a rosette about the base of the plant and surrounding the flower spike. These flower spikes can contain up to 200 individual flowers to which the stem upwardly points. Some of the flowers have the look of women in crinoline ball gowns. In terms of colour they are usually pale pink or rose, with a deeper purple ‘head’.

Close-up of bright pink-purple lady orchid flowers

Where to spot it

The Lady Orchid can be found in most parts of Europe (specifically Kent, England), Northern Africa, Turkey and the Caucasus.

Lady orchids usually grow in woodlands, oak forests, slopes and meadows, and can occasionally occur on savanna. They prefer to grow in limestone or chalk soil, in shady or sunny places. The Lady Orchid occurs in short grassland, on woodland edges and sometimes in open woodland. However, it is now very rarely found in the UK.

Best time to spot it

Lady Orchid’s flowering occurs in late April to June.

Did you know?

The sepals and upper petals are known to be purple, hence the Lady Orchid adopting the latin name purpurea.

Other Species

Scottish Primrose

Primula scotica

A Scottish Primrose with three bright pink flower heads amongst grass

The ultimate northerner in our flora, Scottish Primrose grows on coastal promontories on the north coast of Scotland, including Dunnet Head, the northernmost tip of mainland Britain.

Close up of pink Scottish Primrose with three flowers

Where to spot it

Scottish Primrose is low-growing and easily overlooked. It typically grows in heaths and coastal grasslands. As well as growing in the north coast of Scotland, this attractive flower also grows in Orkney, across the Pentland Firth, but nowhere else in the world. It is easily distinguished from the common primrose by its blueish-purple petals.

Best time to spot it

Scottish Primrose flowers from May to June.

Did you know?

Scottish Primrose is the county flower of Caithness.

Other Species

Early Dog-violet

Viola reichenbachiana

Five-petalled Early Dog-violet flower on a background of blurred leaves, with a second budding flower out of focus

Early by name, early by nature: the Early Dog-violet is the first of the violets to bloom.

While its cousin, the Common Dog-violet, traditionally flowers in April, the Early Dog-violet pops up in March, or earlier if the local climate has been unseasonably mild. The unscented flowers of both violets are similar but the Early Dog-violet has a darker purple spur behind the petals.

Single Early Dog-violet flower amongst grass

Where to spot it

The Early Dog-violet is found across central, eastern and southern England growing on hedge banks and in chalk woodlands. It is an indicator species for ancient woodland.

How’s it doing?

Early Dog-violet is categorised as least concern, so there is a good chance that you will be able to spot it if you look for it in the right places!

Early Dog-violet flower with five petalled, some of which have a slightly white mottled pattern on the purple petals

Things you might not know

  • Both Early Dog-violets and Common Dog-violets respond rampantly when light is allowed into the wood. A forty-fold increase in the number of violet flowers was once recorded in Cambridgeshire after coppicing.
  • Another name you might hear for the Early Dog-violet is the Woodland Violet.
  • The Early Dog-violet used to be called the Pale Wood Violet as its flowers do tend to be lighter than the Common variety.
  • It is a key food source for five of Britain’s most threatened butterflies: pearl-bordered fritillary, small pearl-bordered fritillary, high brown fritillary, silver-washed fritillary and dark green fritillary.

Other Species

Violet Coral

Clavaria zollingeri

Violet coloured fungus with branches looking like coral on a green grassy area.

How to identify

Fruiting BodyCoral shaped and of a distinctive purple-violet colour
Fruiting body size3-10cm tall and up to 8cm across.
Individual stems are typically 4-7mm in diameter at the base,
branching upwards and outwards
SporesWhite

Where to find them?

Violet Coral (Clavaria zollingeri) is a rare species in Britain found in unimproved grassland. It is usually solitary, but can occur in small groups.

Did you know?

It is listed as vulnerable across Europe on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Other Species

Honey Fungus (Armillaria species) 
Honey fungus, Armillaria mellea, photographed on a dead branch in a woodland. The pale creamy brown of the fungus stands out against bright green mosses that cover the branch

Honey Fungus (Armillaria species) 

Common Knapweed

Centaurea nigra

Also known as “Hardheads” or “Black knapweed”, this wild flower is one of our toughest meadow plants.

Knapweed is a firm favourite of our pollinating insects, being a source of good quality nectar. And as well as supporting our bee, butterflies and beetles its seeds provide food for many birds.

Identification

Somewhat thistle-like, common knapweed can be identified by its slightly spherical black/brown flower head, growing alone, topped with purple, pink or (more rarely) white. The bracts are triangular in shape. Its leaves are linear to lance-like in shape with incomplete lobes.

Greater knapweed – a close relation – is similar but its flowers are more garish and opulent and its leaves are fully lobed.

Distribution

Found throughout Britain.

Habitat

Knapweed is a wild flower of meadows and other grassland habitats from lawns to cliff-tops. It can often be seen on road verges where wildlife is allowed to thrive and also in hedgebanks.

Best time to see

In flower, June to September.

Did you know…

  • In days gone by eligible young women would play a love-divination game by pulling out the rays and putting the plucked knapweed flower in their blouse. When as-yet unopened florets began to bloom it would tell her the man of her dreams was near. This game to foretell the future of love is also played with Greater Plantain.
  • Most of the local names including Bachelor’s buttons, Blue bottle and Iron knobs are explained by the hard, knobby heads, the bottle-shaped structure beneath the flower and the toughness of the plant.
  • Knapweed has been used to treat ruptures and wounds, bruises, sores, scabs and sore throat, etc.

Other Species

Wild Leek

Allium ampeloprasum

A native wild relative of the familiar garden vegetable.

Wild Leek has globe-like heads on stems that can grow to a metre tall. Its leaves are just like the common garden leek, although the stem is not quite so fat. All parts have a strong onion scent.

County flower of Cardiff/Caerdydd.

Found wild on Flat Holm island just off the Cardiff coast, what better than the wild leek for representing the nation’s capital?

Distribution

Just one locality on Ynys Mon (Anglesey) in North Wales and on a couple of islands in the Severn Estuary, two other forms of wild leek (var. bulbifera and var. babingtonii) are distributed around the coast of the British Isles.

Habitat

Sandy and rocky places near the sea, especially in old fields and hedge banks, on sheltered cliff-slopes, by paths and tracks and in drainage ditches and other disturbed places.

Best time to see

Flowers from late June to August

A wild leek flower head

Status

Wild Leek is believed to have be en introduced to Britain. It is a scarce species, naturalised in only a few areas.

Did you know…

  • The Wild Leek is the Wild crop relative of our cultivated leek but looks more like Elephant Garlic than the green and white leek you would recognise.
  • The leek is one of the two national plants of Wales – the story goes that King Cadwaladr of Gwynedd ordered his soldiers (the Cymry) to identify themselves in an ancient battle against the Saxons by wearing a leek on their helmet.
  • Wild leeks were probably introduced to Wales from the Eastern Mediterranean as early as the bronze age but are unfortunately now Classed as Vulnerable to extinction on the Welsh Red List of Plants. Plantlife supports a project to ensure that the Wild Leek is protected at its only site in Wales.

Other Species