Messages in Facebook : Orchids of the UK.
Every year we wait to see our usual crop of wild Orchids in gardens and local meadows and they havent let us down again. This year we have seen two quite rare White Pyramidal's
There are many interesting reports concerning Orchids in the UK but this one is exceptional!!
RARE ORCHIDS FOUND IN CITY OF LONDON BANK'S ROOFTOP GARDEN
A colony of rare orchids has been discovered growing on the rooftop of an office building in the City of London.
It is the first time the small-flowered tongue-orchid has been seen in the UK since arriving in Cornwall in 1989. It is generally found in the Mediterranean basin and Atlantic coast of France, Spain and Portugal.
The 15 plants growing in Nomura International's 11th-floor garden represent the entire known wild UK colony of the species. The joy of the previous colony's discovery, at Rame Head in Cornwall in 1989, was in sharp contrast to the pain felt when it disappeared 20 years later. At this point, the small-flowered tongue-orchid was thought to have become extinct as a wild plant in the UK.
Nomura's ecologist Mark Patterson, who manages the roof garden, discovered the orchids during a monthly survey. How the plants came to be in the Japanese investment bank's roof garden remains unknown, although as Mr Patterson points out, it’s seeds can travel great distances by wind.
"The plants could have originated on the continent and been brought over the Channel on southerly winds which frequently bring Saharan dust deposits to the capital," he said.
"Once settled on the Nomura roof, the seeds would have formed a symbiosis with a mycorrhizal fungus enabling them to germinate and grow. While possible, the odds are astronomical."
