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One of the flowers I missed while I was in Libya was the forst flowering of the native Orchid - Dactylorhiza ... species - I'm not entirtely certain which one I bought - probably Dactylorhiza maculata, the Heath Spotted orchid. I ought to have kept a record when I bought it from Hayley's Orchids on ebay. A great source but they are not cheap plants - mine was around £13 - for one plant!
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/hayleys-orchids
Unfortunately lots of the native orchids have pink varieties and Jiurie hadn't mastered the Macro function on the camera.
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We took a walk around the area with the Dog last week and came across a muddy field that had several interesting plants in it. One was the great Muddy retriever.
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The other was the Nortern Marsh orchid - very dark, spotted by Jiurie. there were around a dozen in the field hidden in the depths of the long grass. As tempting as it was to dig one up and bring it in it was never a consideration for me. It is illegal but it is also immoral as I know that if I did and transplanted it to the garden it would simply die so that would be out and out wrong. Still don't know why orchids are thought of as exotic - I mean they are local plants but still the name holds a bit of magic - an orcid - a native oprchid.
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