Scarce orchid found in Highlands after 250 years - National Trust for Scotland
The coral root orchid has been rediscovered in Wester Ross after a gap of 250 years.
This scarce and enigmatic plant was rediscovered at Balmacara Estate in the North West Highlands earlier this month. The find took place during a visit from a small party of conservation land managers from the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest. The group were there to discuss the management of Scotland’s rare, biodiverse and threatened rainforest habitat and chanced upon the diminutive, but beautiful, orchid in an area of wet woodland on the Coille Mhòr Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Gus Routledge, a young expert ecologist representing Reforesting Scotland and Scotland: The Big Picture, made the exciting discovery.
The orchid was last recorded in the area by John Lightfoot and Thomas Pennant in 1772 and was the first ever record of coral root orchid from the British Isles. The record was published in the first botanical book on Scottish plants, Flora Scotica, which recounts some of the earliest recorded botanical expeditions to Scotland. It described the location as ‘in a moist, hanging wood called Cabal, on the south side, near the head of Little Loch Broom’. The exact location of this record, given the place name is now obscure, is not known other than it was in Wester Ross. The 2022 site is being kept secret in order to protect the species from being trampled by mistake, as it can be difficult to spot.
The orchid is classed as nationally scarce, meaning it has only ever been found in less than 100 locations in the UK. It is typically found in wet, swampy woodland in the more continental north-eastern areas of the UK. There are very few records from the western side of Scotland. According to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland’s database, it has been seen in only 25 sites (10km squares) in Scotland since 2020 and only 3 elsewhere in the UK in this time, all in northern England.
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Posted On: 27/06/2022