A tiny primate on a stem: a pale hood for a head and a lip with long, thin, curled arms and legs, on a grazed chalk slope
Monkey orchid — Orchis simia.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Monkey orchid
Native · flowers May–Jun · grazed chalk grassland; three sites
Orchis simia — Orchidaceae
The monkey orchid is one of Britain's rarest plants: each flower has a pale hood for a head and a lip with two long, thin, curling arms and two legs, like a tiny monkey. It was locally frequent in the Oxfordshire Chilterns in the 17th and 18th centuries but was ploughed out, and a colony found in Kent in 1955 revived hopes. Three populations are now known, all protected and managed.
How to spot them
- ▸Each flower is a tiny monkey: a pale grey-pink hood as the head, and a lip with two long thin arms and two legs
- ▸Unusually, the flowers open from the top of the spike downwards
- ▸Broad, unspotted, glossy leaves in a rosette, stem up to about 30–40 cm
- ▸Grazed lime-rich grassland on south-facing slopes, sometimes with sparse scrub, May to June
- ▸Look-alike: the military orchid has a darker helmet and short, stubby lip lobes, whereas the monkey's arms and legs are long, thread-like and curled
How to know it
Its species name is Latin for ape, and the flowers open from the top of the spike downwards, unusual among orchids
Monkey orchid — simia.
Locally frequent in the Oxfordshire Chilterns in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was almost lost to ploughing before a colony turned up in Kent in 1955
Monkey orchid — BSBI.
Only three populations survive, two in Kent and one in Oxfordshire, protected on Schedule 8, and hand pollination has helped it
Monkey orchid — BSBI.
A seedling takes about seven years to flower, though the fastest recorded managed it three years after emerging
Monkey orchid — BSBI.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Orchidaceae; simia is Latin for ape or monkey
- •Native; flowers May to June (BSBI)
- •Formerly locally frequent in the Oxfordshire Chilterns and occasional elsewhere in south-east England in the 17th and 18th centuries; declined from the mid-18th century through ploughing and improvement of chalk grassland (BSBI)
- •A colony discovered in Kent in 1955 showed that it had survived; BSBI records three known populations now, two in Kent and one in Oxfordshire, totalling several hundred plants and increasing under management
- •BSBI: a seedling takes about seven years in ideal conditions to flower, with three years after emergence the minimum recorded; individuals can flower for many years
- •In Britain it rarely sets seed unless hand-pollinated, and hand pollination and seed introduction have been used to boost populations (BSBI)
- •Protected on Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and rated Vulnerable on the GB Red List (BSBI); it is an offence intentionally to pick, uproot or destroy it. Never dig up or pick any wild orchid
Drill it — 6 cards
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Sources
- Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland — Orchis simia, Monkey Orchid
- legislation.gov.uk — Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Schedule 8