Orchids at the cabin

Dactylorhiza orchids are extremely common along roads in the area of our cabin where there are thousands of them along with a carpet of other flowers. They are also to be found in the forests, on marshes and in the hills where they occur more naturally and in lower densities. In their natural habitat it seems to be that the same similar looking plants grow together but on the road verges the variety in terms of height of plant, colour of flowers (from white to purple), colour of stalks (from light green to purple), number of flowers, marking on leaves and shape of leaves has left me bewildered for years. I haven’t found the literature I have to be particulary useful and a norwegian website I have used https://www.norske-orkideer.no has to be honest just confused me more. I have slowly worked things out though and two things have made it a lot easier this year: firstly a lot of lumping of species means I can be happy to assign plants to a higher species level and not worry myself (too much) with subspecies/forms or hybrids and secondly I have discovered a MUCH better Norwegian website http://www.maculata.com/index.html#home which has managed to remove some of the confusion. 

I first paid attention to the orchids in 2017 and picked (for the first and last time) 5 different types that really stood out. I took pictures of them lined up next to each other and it is only now that I think I have worked out what they are.

Since then we have discovered a number of other less difficult to identify, but harder to find, species and this year went specifically searching for a couple of rare and spectacular species that I have always wanted to see and knew occured nearby.

The list of species we have found within a 5km radius of the cabin is:

1. Cypripedium calceolus Lady’s Slipper Orchid / marisko
2. Ophrys insectifera Fly orchid / flueblom
3. Gymnadenia conopsea Fragrant orchid / brudespore
4. Pseudorchis straminea White mountain orchid / fjellhvitkurle
5. Platanthera bifolia Lesser butterfly orchid / nattfiol
6. Neottia ovata Common Twayblade / stortveblad
7. Epipactis helleborine Broad-leaved helleborine / breiflangre
8. Epipactis atrorubens Dark-red helleborine / rødflangre
9. Dactylorhiza maculata (I am unsure of the English name for this superspecies but the new Norwegian name is blekmarihand) both subspecies maculata Heath spotted orchid / flekkmarihand and fuchsii Common Spotted Orchid / skogmarihand and all sorts inbetween
10. Dactylorhiza incarnata Early marsh orchid / engmarihand
11. Dactylorhiza majalis Broad-leaved marsh orchid / lappmarihand. This «species» is apparantly a result of (ancient) hybridisation between the previous two species and comes in many forms of which the lapland form (sometimes called Lapland marsh orchid) is the one here

There are another 7-8 species recorded around Bodø so I still have plenty to look for in the years ahead.

Here are pictures of the various species and if I have got anything wrong then please let me know!

Lady’s Slipper (marisko)- when freshly in flower this is Europe’s most spectacular orchid;
For us it was disappointing to find it way over the top

Despite being large it was easy to overlook but we found 40 in the end

Fly Orchid (flueblom) - it has evolved to attract the males of a certain type of wasp(?) to cross polinate

We found over 20 plants at one extensive site

Fragrant Orchid (brudespore)  was very common in the same area as the Fly Orchids

This over the top orchid (one of three) was with the Fragrant and Fly Orchids and has proven to be a bit of a headache but I have concluded with White Mountain Orchid (fjellhvitkurle)

Lesser Butterfly Orchid (nattfiol)

Common Twayblade (stortveblad) are difficult to spot but onfe you get your eye in are quite widespread

I discoverd two Helleborines last year that had still not flowered by 20 July and I was unsure
what type they were. This year though the first bud opened on 13 July showing them to be
Broad-leaved Helleborines (breiflangre)

Dark-red Helleborine (rødflangre) which flowers a couple of weeks earlier and is a smaller plant

Heath Spotted Orchids maculata (flekkmarihand) growing on a marsh where they are short and pale pink

Along the roads are larger and usually darker spotted orchids that match Common Spotted fuschsii (skogmarihand)

Ol

This is I reckon a fuschsii

And this a maculata

But what is this white one?

And Early marsh orchid (engmarihand)

A version with dark leaves that is called blodmarihand in Norwegian

And another version growing right next to the blodmarihand but with unspotted leaves.
These two were growing on a marsh with no other species whereas the first was on a
verge with lots of spotted orchids

And the final species: Broad-leaved marsh orchid (lappmarihand) which is similar to the previous
Species but has a broader lower petal

I have also loads of pictures of road verge orchids that I cannot confidently place (the choice lies between the last 3 species) and which I assume are hybrids but I really don’t have the energy to get into them just yet.

And here is the picture from July 2017 that started my confusion.

After 4 years I reckon I have (almost) worked them out. From left:
Common Spotted Orchid  (skogmarihand) maculata fuschsii
Fragrant Orchid (brudespore)
A white variant of Common Spotted? (Skogmarihand)
Broad-leaved marsh orchid (lappmarihand)
Early marsh orchid (engmarihand)