The Suffolk Serapias

 Today was a day long in the plans. The news that what was then thought to be a small-flowered tongue orchid being found in Suffolk last year got me really excited. After I tried and failed to arrange access for myself to see the bigger colony on the Nomura green roof in London, I devoted myself to learning what I could about the Suffolk colony, which consisted of just 2 plants. For a long time, I thought it was in a place that turned out completely wrong. But then I had a breakthrough. In order to see the orchid, however, it would be quite the bike ride, so I decided to get Market Weston Fen and the Serapias all in one trip, since I wanted to see what a marsh fragrant-orchid looked like. 

Market Weston Fen was the first destination and here I found a lot of exciting flowering orchids. However, none of what I wanted was visible, so I ran all over the reserve looking for them. About an hour later, I had seen no fragrant orchids, but did manage to find a very nice-looking marsh helleborine

Deciding to search an area that looked promising again, I said to myself '10 minutes and I'm leaving'. 10 minutes later, I had not found what I had come for, even though I had found a massive colony of marsh helleborines, although curiously only a small part was flowering. Just as I returned to my bike, as it happened, I passed a small fragrant-orchid colony. 

Marsh-fragrant orchid, I thought. I had seen a chalk fragrant-orchid a while back, and this both looked and smelled different to that. After I had taken enough photos, I wondered how I had missed them from the trail before. but a quick glance at the area of the colony from the trail explained why. 

One part of the journey over, and a much more exciting part began. I took my bike, and headed south. I arrived at a reasonably popular natural area and paid the entrance charge, but today it had so much people that I was very surprised. Once inside, it did not take me long to track down the star of the show, growing near a lovely birch grove amidst a wildflower meadow full of spotted orchids. 

Its size alone made me doubt that it was a small-flowered tongue orchid. As time progressed, various identities were proposed as to the orchid. The first claim was that it was a greater tongue orchid, and I was determined to debunk that claim, because making such an exhausting journey which felt like cycling up a mountain all the time for something I had seen in May would make me very upset, despite the allure and rarity of the Essex tongue orchids. So, when I found it, I investigated its colour, and most importantly, it's flower, particularly the 'tongue'.

Having seen the greater tongue orchids in May, I can say for certain that the Suffolk Serapias is absolutely not a greater tongue orchid, to my great relief, because the 'tongue' pattern is completely different and the 'tongue' is also much broader, not even mentioning the massive colour difference. I took a couple of more photographs, and then tried to identify it. 

I came up with an answer already after I had left the reserve. The form, colouration, the vein structure on the 'tongue', and the size all screamed 'Serapias vomeracea' to me. This was a suggestion made already by others in regards to this orchid. The vomeracea, or long-lipped serapias, is typically found in the Mediterranean, though it also has been seen in the southwest of France. Much as with the Essex tongue orchids, I really want to believe it somehow got here naturally. I recall reading a suggestion that one of the greater tongue orchid colonies, now long gone from the south of England, that they arrived along with dust blown from Africa. 

Natural or introduced, if it is Serapias vomeracea, then, with a population of just 4 plants in the UK, this will become the UK's second-rarest orchid species based on population size- only the ghost orchid would be rarer than that. 

Recently, however, an increasing number of people have voiced a third opinion- that the tongue orchid is actually Serapias bergonii...