Dactylorhiza incarnata cruenta

• English: Early Marsh Orchid
• Swedish: Blodnycklar
• Finnish: Punakämmekkä

This is why I drive to the mountains to hunt flowers. To find species that we don’t get around here.. like the early marsh orchid. I have visited the mountains regularly since I moved to Sweden, but I didn’t discover the early marsh orchid until last year, and even then it was pointed out to me. Now I can recognise it with one hand tied behind my back. The other hand I need for turning the leaf to see if it has a dark underside!The funny thing is that I also seem to find some species in the mountains that I can’t find here, even though the distribution map shows that they should grow here. The early marsh orchid is however not one of them, as plentiful as it seems to be in the Härjedalsfjällen region. Or maybe you just need to know where to look…

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Image specs: ISO 100, f5.00, 1/320, Canon 300mm f4L w/ 21mm ext. tube