I had a question about orchids from a nature table explorer this week asking ‘ do orchids have bulbs?’ I have been finding out some information to help answer this.

Orchids grow in many different habitats and are adapted differently.

Many tropical orchids are epiphytes ( the grow on a tree or another plant)

Many of these epiphytic orchids have a swollen structure called a pseudobulb, these are very variable.When a new shoot develops the base may swell into a pseudobulb,this may be as a preparation for a dormant period at the end of a growing season.

The orchids we find in Britain growing in soil in a temperate climate do not have pseudobulbs they have underground tubers, corms or rhizomes. These store nutrients for dormancy when the orchid leaves die back.

Hopefully this is interesting information for the orchid explorer😀

This orchid was growing in very damp conditions at Wicken fen .

I have noticed this insect in a few places over the last week got a good photo today. What the photo doesn’t show is the really bright yellow abdomen bright like a jelly bean.

This is the Large Rose Sawfly (Arge pagana)

Sawflies are part of the insect order call Hymenoptera which also contains bees wasps and ants.

In Britain there are 107 genera and 500 species of sawfly … amazing .

Sawflies are different from bees and wasps and ants because they do not have a waist shaped abdomen. They also have distinctive wing Venation.

The name Sawfly comes from the fact that most females have saw – like genitalia they use to cut plant tissue to lay their eggs.

All sawflies are harmless and can’t sting .

I’m on the look out for more Sawflies !

Grasses are the largest family of flowering plants found in Britain there are about 200 native and introduced species to be found.

To identify these plants a new set of terms need to be learnt and understood- the language of grasses.

Grasses have flowers which need to be looked at closely and understood. I’ve drawn a diagram to explain them.

These are clustered in spikelets that are one characteristic used in keys to identify grassed- diagram 2

Another feature used is the structure of the ligule this is where the leaf blade and the stem join-diagram 3

To attempt some identification of the grasses I collected at Swineshead I have laid them out as herbarium sheets and used 2 Collins identification guides.

It is surprising how many different species there were without looking really closely.

Definitely a skill I’ll be practising and grasses are firmly on my explorer radar !

As you drive around you may notice that the verges are a riot of colour at the moment full of cow parsley,hogweed, red campion and dog Rose to name a few . A few weeks ago there were drifts of cowslips. These look beautiful but also provide corridors of habitats for insects birds and small mammals . Plantlife have a campaign to encourage the management of these verges to discourage constant mowing and habitat destruction. They have a petition to sign and is a great cause to support.

A good example of how these areas of land can surprise you with diversity is my experience last June. Coming down the slip road off the busy A45 something caught my eye. I even drove around the roundabout stopped in the kfc car park and made my way to the verges .

There were groups of beautiful bee orchids and other flowers . The area was alive with insects. This year it has been mowed to an extreme short cut and it is barren ! Which would you prefer?

Wicken Fen is a national nature reserve and has been owned by the National trust from 1899. There have been 9000 species recorded at this amazing place,

We visited in amazing Sunshine on Sunday afternoon and were treated to beautiful flowers , dragonflies, Damselflies and birds.

The wild flowers appeared in swaths as we walked through the boardwalks and mowed paths.

First yellow flags-

Next ragged robin in amongst short rushes –

Orchids came next,first the odd one or two followed by beautiful drifts

The reeds, sedges and grasses create a wonderful landscape

The dragonflies and damsels did not disappoint the photos are all on my phone so not as sharp as I hoped as they were so busy hunting ,flying or mating !

There were four spot chasers , blue bodied chasers,Emperor dragon flies, small red Damselfly, azure and blue tailed damselflies .

After watching and trying to photograph unsuccessfully we noticed that when the dragonflies rested they seemed to choose the same reed rather like a watch post ( as in the photo above)

Cuckoos were calling and we saw one fly which was unusual and the first time I had seen it. we saw warblers and learnt to distinguish by song the Cettis warbler.

The open water areas were literally teeming with fish , great identification boards around , there was a pike in the weeds very still either watching the shoals or too full up to bother!

Wicken Fen is a brilliant place to visit great trails wonderful wildlife and great local ice cream. Definitely will visit again this summer and Autumn.

This table is all about plants , grasses, rushes and sedges. All of them are narrow stemmed and often over looked . They are often grouped rather than specifically identified when we talk about them. Grass flowers are very complex and to identify a species a hand lens is often needed. I am going to post some identified common grasses over the next few weeks,this is part of a ‘learn new things’ mission I’m on.

Also on the table is the plantain because it also has narrow leaves and a flower that might be confused as a sedge.

Finally the very pretty Phacelia which I found for the first time this year.

Keep an eye out for som grass identification over the next couple of weeks.

The cow parsley and hogweed are busy places. There are bees , flies and beetles and many other animals using them for feeding, hunting and mating. Yesterday they were bustling with life.

Daggerflies (Emis tessellata) we’re feeding in the hogweed umbels. They are nectar eaters but also predators that pierce their prey with their long probosis( hence the name) I thought their wings were great and their deadly profile.

Also on the dinner tables of umbelifers were Early mining bees (Andrena haemorrha) There are 60-80 in this genus found in Britain.

They are solitary bees, sometimes they live next door to other bees holes but they are not part of a colony. This is the most common species of mining bee. I like the colour of the thorax.

There were other bees and flies and beetles enjoying life in the flat tops of the hogweed. Honey bees and others.

It is definitely a place to watch as you walk down a hedgerow or the edge of a field , there is a lot going on !

I have collected some grasses today as well as some sedges and rushes ready for making nature table number three .

I have dug out a book I haven’t looked at in a while ready for investigating and identifying the plants tomorrow . Looking forward to putting some names to these quietly lovely plants .

Along the edge of a field of wheat there were lots of tiny flying insects seemingly attracted to the buttercups lots of them mating. They were very small less than a cm long and very slender.

Using the trusted insects of Britain guide and then searching on google for photographs they are Cepheus pygmaeus, common name European stem sawfly.

The larvae of this sawfly are stem borers and can do damage to crops. There are 12 species of the Cephidae in Britain.

A walk at Swineshead through the ancient woodland, bluebells all finished. This is a very wet wood today it was still very muddy . There are some really huge oak trees here which are beautiful.

Coming out of the woods we walked along the field edge and came across a patch of purple haze . From a distance I thought they were thistles but in closer inspection they are Phacelia(Phacelia tanacetifolia)

This is an introduced plant a native of W Northern America which has naturalised over much of Europe.