Hello Rich
In my previous post I suggested the possibility that the plants were mutant VH, your post doesn't change my thoughts, in fact it reinforces them.
Hello Sean,
To see such an unequivocal statement as "exactly like broad-leaved helleborine" in your post was something of a surprise. Assuming you are right, and I'm not suggesting otherwise, I would have expected something more along the lines of "a rather unusual BLH"
It's a site I've only visited once, and that was years ago when I was just starting out on the orchid trail, but on that visit I have a vague recollection of the warden saying there were no BLH on the site. Do we have among us someone who has knowledge of the area and knows if BLH are known on the site or nearby!
Alan
Hi Alan
Firstly, I want to re-iterate the point form my previous post - this season has proven to be quite a learning one for me. It has made me realise that I haven't yet seen enough Epipactis plants, because I seem to keep changing my mind a lot when faced with new photo's, new plants and new opinions.
To take your points in order, I am halfway between agreeing with you that they are weird Violet Helleborines and going back to my previous thought that it is a hybrid. The fact that it would be the only BLH in Rich's colony is irrelevant for me, as I have seen this at two sites from immediate memory - a Violet-only colony with one or two BLH randomly nearby or alongside.
BLH can easily occur in deep shade, I have seen it in such a situation a number of times quite successfully.
As for flowering period, this is broad in both species and is purely a guide and only to be used in conjunction with more than one other feature. As an aside, for Narrow-lipped, plants in Bucks flowered from the first week of July one year, but in gloucs were still in flower during the second week of August.
As for Rich's plants, he has more than convinced me that the flowers conform to Violet Helleborine. The leaves, however, are extraordinary and surely belong to BLH. I have seen many hundreds of Violet, at close to 20 sites in England and a number on mainland Europe, and have never seen leaves like that. So maybe we have our hybrid?
With reference to the Warburg plant, as James says, BLH does occur close by, and the plant in question has been there a number of years, as evinced by its size and double stem. It has also been considered a BLH until now.
As above, flowering time and its surrounding by another species are of minimal relevance in my opinion. So we are left to base the identification on the appearance of the plant - which conforms to a standard BLH in the flesh. I will post pictures later.
I visited with a friend who has long experience of Epipactis, in the Chilterns in particular. He found the plant unremarkable too, as did another friend who I met later, who had seen the plant previously.
Can someone remind me of the feel of the leaves of Violet and Broad-leaved hells? Leaf-fondling is not something I've done a lot of - microscopy and dissection are my closet vices.
Sean
