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Portrait of Bird's-nest orchid

Nature · Wildflowers & flowers

Bird's-nest orchid

Native · flowers May–Jul · shaded woodland, especially beech

Neottia nidus-avis — Orchidaceae

The bird's-nest orchid is a pale, honey-brown orchid with no green in it at all. It has no chlorophyll and cannot photosynthesise; it lives on the leaf litter of shady woods, especially beech, fed through a fungus. Its name comes from the tangle of thick roots underground, like a bird's nest. Its ghostly, leafless spike can be mistaken for a fungus or for a dead plant.

How to spot them

  • ▸Leafless, honey-brown or yellowish-brown spike up to about 35 cm tall, with scale-like brown bracts instead of leaves
  • ▸Many small, hooded, honey-coloured flowers packed into a loose spike
  • ▸No green at all: it has no chlorophyll
  • ▸Deep shade of woodland, especially beech, on chalky soils, May to July
  • ▸Look-alike: broomrapes are also leafless and brown, but are parasites on other plants and have a two-lipped, tubular flower; the bird's-nest orchid is an orchid, with a lip that forks into two

How to know it

A ghostly, leafless, honey-brown spike in deep beech woodland, with no green anywhere in it

Bird's-nest orchid — Neottia nidus-avis.

Named for the tangle of thick roots underground, said to look like a woven cup of twigs built by a songbird

Bird's-nest orchid — nidus-avis means bird's nest.

It has no chlorophyll and takes its nutrients through fungi linked to the roots of trees, and is often described as a parasite of tree roots

Bird's-nest orchid — a mycoheterotroph.

Listed as Near Threatened on the GB Red Data List and, in Northern Ireland, protected by law

Bird's-nest orchid — Wildlife Trusts.

Shares its genus with an orchid named for having exactly two leaves, yet this one has no leaves at all

Bird's-nest orchid — same genus as the common twayblade.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Family Orchidaceae; nidus-avis is Latin for 'bird's nest'
  • •Native; flowers May to July, up to about 35 cm tall (Wildlife Trusts)
  • •Has no chlorophyll and does not photosynthesise; the Wildlife Trusts describe it as growing as a parasite on tree roots, and botanists know it as a mycoheterotroph, taking its carbon and nutrients via fungi associated with tree roots
  • •Named for the nest-like tangle of roots (Wildlife Trusts)
  • •Especially found in woodland, particularly under beech (Wildlife Trusts)
  • •Wildlife Trusts: Near Threatened on the Vascular Plant Red Data List for Great Britain, and protected in Northern Ireland; scattered over mainland UK and commonest in southern England and Northern Ireland
  • •Same genus as the common twayblade, Neottia
  • •Not on Schedule 8, but it is an offence under section 13(1)(b) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for anyone who is not an authorised person to intentionally uproot any wild plant. Do not dig up wild orchids

Drill it — 6 cards

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Sources