Early- purples definately plant of the month!

Well done everyone who has been searching the target woods for Early- purples.


This is a screen shot of the recent adnoto submitted records showing a good coverage.




Chris will be adding these records to the database to give an overall map of Early-purples in the county.
Contrast this species with Green-winged orchid described by John Dony in his flora of 1953 as "Frequent....on calcareous soils throughout the county...becoming scarcer..increased ploughing of grassland". Chris`s  2011 flora has recent ( 1987 - 2006) records from 7 tetrads.

We are down to 4 in 2012/13 as one of these recent records was made in 2012. We can only hope that with increases in field edge grassland in agri-environment schemes that Green-winged can make a comeback.
If you know of any likely grassland that is flower rich..perhaps in your local churchyard, common or orchard now would be a good time to have a look.
Good hunting as always.
Graham