The sward is rich with sedges, grasses and an assortment of herbs and flowers
Common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). Photograph: FLPA/Alamy
The sun is hammering Wharfedale, the air is still and exertion
is uncomfortable. Perhaps the fishermen clustered around the lakes,
casually snaking flies across the water, have the right idea. Scoured
clean by glaciers 10,000 years ago, the green mantle of the valley is
still frayed, bald patches of ashen limestone show through on the slopes
and shoulders. This is a big landscape, a broad expanse, not
mountainous but rugged. Kilnsey Crag is reminiscent of the overhanging
cliffs that edge limestone valleys in southern France.
The grass
on the valley floor provides good grazing, but despite its superficial
attractiveness it has been "improved" and has lost its once stunning
bounty of wild flowers.
One fragment has escaped the fertilisers and herbicides. Among the
springs and streams of Kilnsey Park is a gem of a site. Saved by the
slopes, hillocks and boggy patches, the little meadow was too much
trouble to "improve". The sward is rich with sedges, delicate grasses
and an assortment of herbs and flowers. Most impressive are the orchids:
hundreds of thick, pink candles projecting from the green swaddling.
The common spotted orchids, predominantly white with little purple dots,
abound alongside velvety purple northern marsh orchids, and shorter,
pale orangey-pink early marsh orchids. Marsh helleborines are scattered
in one area of the field; the loose, drooping sprays of green buds soon
to provide the next splash of colour.
Minute orchid seeds do not
contain enough resources to start a new plant. Only by forming an
alliance with a soil fungus willing to give the orchid a start in life
can they germinate. It is thought that marsh helleborine shares its
fungus partner with the lady's slipper orchid. Hence this fabled rarity
has been introduced into the field in the hope that it will proliferate
and provide a genetic reservoir should anything happen to the last
remaining wild plant. So far so good: the introduced plants are flourishing, several flowered well this spring, and everyone is waiting to see if they will reproduce.
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