Autumn Lady’s Tresses
Spiranthes Spirales
This very small orchid is one of the last flowering of the season, with blooms extending into mid September. Growing on dry, chalky down land it has faced a steep decline due to land ‘improvement’. A combination of fertilisers and reseeding with vigorous species with which this little plant can’t compete have pushed it from over 50% of its range in the past 40 years.
Autumn Lady’s Tresses breaking bud
The flowering plant grows up to 30cm tall, and has up to 20 small greeny white blooms. Its beauty can be overlooked until seen up close, where the individual fringed lips form a tiny trumpet. Collected the flowers spiral around the stem giving it the appearance of a miniature gladiolus. It flowers irregularly and so quantities of flowers can vary enormously. For example in 2015 there were around 40 flowering plants on one Clifton Down site, whereas in 2016 the same site had over 250. It grows individually, in small clusters and in loose curving strings as though following a creeping root. In fact they have small individual clusters of mini rhizomes that look like tiny parsnips. But don’t dig them up to look!
Small clump of Autumn Lady’s Tresses