After all the hyping I’ve done about the lesser butterfly orchid, I’m almost afraid to show the picture – risk for an anti-climax! But here’s the deal. I wanted to get a good close-up – a real macro, in fact – of the flower and the long spur. But showing the flower and its spur would require a side view and I don’t think it works, so the option was to find two flowers where one is shown from front and then the other one only by its spur. I was going to get all the petals in the frame but accidentally pushed the camera too close and got this ”clipped” version and liked it, so I figured it’s worth trying. The question is, does the oof spur carry the dead space on the left or is this just weird? I have versions where all the petals are in, as I originally intended.

I have another idea I need to try with these orchids, but it requires that I go to another location and I didn’t feel like walking that far (uh… less than 1 km) in the oppressive heat. Instead, I drove to my favourite bog to see how all the other orchids were coming along, and was pleasantly surprised. For example, two weeks ago I didn’t see any early marsh orchid buds but now the place was suddenly dotted purple with them, certainly more of them than I’ve ever seen here. But the most exciting discovery by far – a common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)! Many times I’ve seen heath spotted orchids (Dactylorhiza maculata) here which are very close to the commons but this is the first time I’m sure. I’ve mentioned it before, there is a very fuzzy line where heath (maculata) ends and common (fuchsii) begins. The biologists can’t even agree if they’re a different species at all… but that makes orchids all the more interesting. They are a relative new-comer in the plant world and are evolving right in front of our eyes!