My Norfolk Orchid Hunt Review

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a good one! Mine wasn't too bad, though I mostly got clothes, oh, and a new phone. As 2019 is now drawing to a close, I thought it would be great looking back at one of my challenge to find as many of the 23 species of orchid found in Norfolk. Here is how my orchid year went, through the series of videos I made along the way...

 

In the end, I managed to see 19 orchids in Norfolk and a bonus one from Suffolk in the form of the Military Orchid. I only failed to find four species out of the 23. Two of those were most likely locally extinct anyway, the bog and lizard orchids, however, the other two completely eluded me. One was the green-flowered helleborine, which despite visiting this one secret place a few times and searching thoroughly, I was unable to locate it.

 

The other was the autumn ladies-tresses, which I went to this small hamlet that was actually on the Lincolnshire/Cambridgeshire border than in Norfolk, but when I got there, the verges I was told they were in were mowed down on that day I visited. It was a long journey for nothing. It wasn't until a couple of months after the orchid season that I learned that autumn ladies tresses were found in the same area as where I saw the creeping ladies-tresses, just they flower a month later! If I get the chance next year, I might see if I can tick these two elusive species off, if anyone hear of anything, keep me posted. For now, I may have another challenge in the works in preparation for 2020, just and see.