A colony of hundreds of plants with reddish stems and drooping white-and-pink flowers whose frilly lip is hinged, growing in a fen or dune slack
Marsh helleborine — Epipactis palustris.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Marsh helleborine
Native · flowers Jul–Aug · fens, wet grassland and dune slacks
Epipactis palustris — Orchidaceae
The marsh helleborine is a delicate and beautiful orchid of fens, wet meadows and dune slacks, with drooping white-and-pink flowers, a frilly lip and reddish stems. It can form colonies of hundreds of plants, yet is declining as wetlands are drained, and is mainly found in southern England.
How to spot them
- ▸Reddish stem up to about 50 cm, with broad oval leaves below and narrower leaves higher up
- ▸Loose spike of drooping flowers: wing-like reddish-brown sepals and a white lip veined with pink and edged with a frill
- ▸The lip is in two parts, a cup and a hinged, frilly front lobe that trembles in the breeze
- ▸Fens, wet grassland and dune slacks on lime-rich ground, July to August, often in dense colonies
- ▸Look-alike: broad-leaved helleborine has dull greenish-purple flowers and grows on drier ground, in woodland and scrub
How to know it
The lip has a hinged front part that is free to move and quivers in a breeze
Marsh helleborine.
Fens, wet grassland and dune slacks on chalky soil are its habitat, and its numbers are falling as wet ground is drained
Marsh helleborine — Wildlife Trusts.
Protected by law in Northern Ireland, it is chiefly a plant of southern England in Britain
Marsh helleborine — Wildlife Trusts.
Its species name is Latin for 'of the marsh'
Marsh helleborine — palustris.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Orchidaceae; palustris is Latin for 'of the marsh'; helleborine means 'like a hellebore'
- •Native; flowers July to August (Wildlife Trusts)
- •Habitat: fens, wet grassland and dune slacks, favouring chalky soils; can grow abundantly, sometimes forming forests of hundreds of plants (Wildlife Trusts)
- •Wildlife Trusts: protected in Northern Ireland under the Wildlife Order 1985; declining through habitat loss, and mainly found in southern England
- •Stems are reddish, and the frilly lip is hinged in two parts
- •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 — Marsh helleborine
- legislation.gov.uk — Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Schedule 8