In praise of the Irish wild orchid

IN the past amateur naturalists have contributed a huge amount to our knowledge of flora and fauna.

Even today many of the people who add to the sum of information about Ireland’s plants, birds and animals have a day job that has nothing to do with natural history.

The clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, have always been strongly represented in this group. I suppose it’s not surprising that highly educated people, often living and working in rural areas, should take a keen interest in their natural environment. There may also be theological reasons for their interest in God’s creation — I’m not really qualified to judge that.

Anyway, I wasn’t overly surprised when I met the priest from a nearby parish and discovered that he had a passionate interest in Irish wild orchids. Fr Jackie O Connell has turned part of the church grounds into an orchid reserve, and apparently this has caused a little friction with parishioners who have asked him to get the grass cut and tidy the place up for their wedding photographs.

I’m delighted he’s held his ground because I’ve been invited round to view the reserve when the orchids start to flower in the spring. As a mediocre amateur botanist I’ve always appreciated these beautiful wild flowers, but I’ve also felt intimidated by them.

This is because I think they must qualify as the most difficult group of Irish wild plants to identify. There are about 30 species in the country, many of which are very similar and many of which hybridise with each other. These hybrids are often fertile, so their offspring can be one quarter one species and three quarters another — a botanical nightmare.

Many of them are quite small plants, and even within a pure species there can be considerable variation, both in the flowers and the foliage. For example, the flowers of the common spotted orchid can vary from white to a very dark pink. Many species also vary in size and in the dark spots on their leaves.

To add to the confusion, the official classification of our wild orchids is in a state of change. This is happening throughout botany and other branches of natural history as modern molecular techniques reveal that many of our earlier conclusions were wide of the mark.

Luckily, Fr O Connell has contributed to something that will dispel much of the confusion, at least as far as the orchids are concerned. He’s also a keen photographer, and many of his orchid photographs have been included in a new field guide to Ireland’s orchids.

This is not only a very useful book, it’s also a very beautiful one. The photographs are augmented by lovely, and very accurate, watercolours and there is a definitive and up-to-date text. This tells you how to identify them and also where to look for them and how rare they are. Armed with this book and, possibly a digital camera with a good macro setting, anyone should be able to untangle the mysteries of these fascinating plants.

Ireland’s Wild Orchids: A Field Guide, by Brendan Sayers and Susan Sex, is produced in two editions. There is a beautifully-bound library edition of 850 signed and numbered copies and a spirally-bound and laminated field edition. They can be ordered from Vincent and Susan Sex, The Retreat, St Anne’s Square, Portmarnock, Co Dublin. The field edition is also available in the shop in the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin. The field edition costs €30 and the library edition €170, plus postage and packing.