A tall orchid with strongly veined, wide oval leaves spiralling up the stem and drooping green-purple flowers in high summer
Broad-leaved helleborine — Epipactis helleborine.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Broad-leaved helleborine
Native · flowers Jul–Sep · woods, scrub, waste ground and gardens
Epipactis helleborine — Orchidaceae
The broad-leaved helleborine is the commonest helleborine and an orchid that turns up in shady woods, hedge-banks, scrub and, quite often, on waste ground and in town gardens. Its tall, leafy stem carries drooping flowers of dull green tinged with purple, which are visited and pollinated by wasps.
How to spot them
- ▸Tall, leafy stem up to about a metre, with broad oval leaves with strong parallel veins, spiralling up the stem
- ▸Loose one-sided spike of drooping, cup-shaped flowers, greenish with a purple tinge, and a pinkish, heart-shaped lip
- ▸Flowers late, from July to September, when most orchids have finished
- ▸Woodland, scrub, hedge-banks, gardens and even urban waste ground
- ▸Look-alike: marsh helleborine grows in fens and dune slacks and has frilly white and pink flowers; broad-leaved is a plant of dry shade with dull green and purple flowers
How to know it
Its flowers contain a little alcohol, so it is said that the wasps and bees that come to feed keep coming back for more
Broad-leaved helleborine — Wildlife Trusts.
An orchid that turns up on waste ground and in gardens, it is particularly associated with wasteland around Glasgow
Broad-leaved helleborine — Wildlife Trusts.
Its name means 'like a hellebore', a plant with leaves it was thought to resemble
Broad-leaved helleborine — helleborine.
Flowering from July to September, it is one of the last orchids of the woods to bloom
Broad-leaved helleborine.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Orchidaceae; helleborine means 'like a hellebore', from the resemblance of the leaves
- •Native; flowers July to September (Wildlife Trusts)
- •Habitat: woodland, scrub, towns and gardens; notably prefers waste ground around Glasgow (Wildlife Trusts)
- •The Wildlife Trusts report that wasps and bees visit for nectar and can become intoxicated by alcohol in the flowers, produced through fungal activity, which brings them back for more and so ensures pollination
- •Leaves are broad, oval and strongly veined, arranged spirally up the stem
- •Not on Schedule 8 (the Schedule lists the red and Young's helleborines), 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
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Broad-leaved helleborine
- legislation.gov.uk — Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Schedule 8