A small spike whose unopened buds are so dark that the tip looks scorched, opening to white spotted lips beneath dark purple helmets
Burnt orchid — Neotinea ustulata.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Burnt orchid
Native · flowers mid-May–Jun, and a late form Jul–Aug · short chalk grassland
Neotinea ustulata — Orchidaceae
The burnt orchid is a small orchid of short chalk turf whose dark reddish-purple hood makes the top of the young flower spike look scorched, against white, spotted, lip flowers below. It has crashed in the last century, with only a fraction of its old sites still holding plants, but is stronghold at Parsonage Down in Wiltshire. It has a rare late-flowering form in July and August.
How to spot them
- ▸Small spike, 5–15 cm high, with a dark reddish-purple, burnt-looking tip of unopened buds
- ▸Opened flowers have a purple-black helmet and a white, three-lobed lip spotted with reddish-purple, so the spike looks two-toned
- ▸Rosette of grey-green, unspotted leaves
- ▸Short, well-drained, infertile chalk grassland on gentle southerly slopes
- ▸Two forms: early (mid-May to mid-June, honey-scented) and late (July to August, weakly citron-scented, southern England)
How to know it
Has two flowering forms: one in May and June, the other in July and August, the late form confined to a few colonies in southern England
Burnt orchid — var. ustulata and var. aestivalis.
Surveys in the late 1980s found it at only 75 of 435 historical sites
Burnt orchid — BSBI.
Parsonage Down in Wiltshire holds about 30,000 flowering spikes of this orchid, perhaps the best population in north-western Europe
Burnt orchid — BSBI.
A dwarf of short chalk turf on well-drained, low-fertility southerly slopes, once called Orchis ustulata
Burnt orchid.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Orchidaceae; ustulata means 'scorched' or 'burnt' in Latin, for the dark tip of the spike; formerly Orchis ustulata
- •Native; flowers mid-May to mid-June in its main early form (var. ustulata), which is honey-scented
- •The late form (var. aestivalis) flowers in July and August, is weakly citron-scented and is confined to southern England (BSBI)
- •BSBI: it declined dramatically through the twentieth century, with late-1980s surveys finding it at only 75 of 435 historical sites; most surviving populations have fewer than 25 plants
- •Parsonage Down in Wiltshire has about 30,000 flowering spikes, described by BSBI as perhaps the best population in north-western Europe
- •Grows in short, species-rich grazed pastures over chalk and other limestone, on moderately steep southerly slopes with low fertility
- •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
1 / 6new card
Sources
- Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland — Neotinea ustulata, Burnt Orchid
- legislation.gov.uk — Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 13