Ghost Orchid Reappears in Britain After 23 Years

Contributed by ontheway (Reporter)
21 March 2010 01:04:55

It is the most mysterious wildflower in Britain, the strangest, the rarest, the hardest to see, and it was given up for lost. But like a wandering phantom, the ghost orchid has reappeared.

After an absence of 23 years, during which it was declared extinct, this pale, diminutive flower, the most enigmatic of all Britain's wild plants, rematerialised last autumn in an oak wood in Herefordshire.

Its sighting, initially kept a close secret, has electrified the British botanical community. Forget your black tulip. This has been British botany's holy grail, searched for annually and ardently by a small army of enthusiasts for more than two decades, but never found.

Its eventual rediscovery was due to the painstaking detective work of an amateur botanist, Mark Jannink, who identified 10 possible sites in the Welsh borders and visited them regularly throughout the summer, until on 20 September he found a single example of Epigogium aphyllum, bearing a single white flower on a white stem only five centimetres tall.

The plant was so unobtrusive that it was invisible from a few yards away. On spotting it, Mr Jannink exclaimed: "Hello you – so there you are!"

Read more here.

http://beforeitsnews.com/news/26521/Ghost_Orchid_Reappears_in_Britain_After_23_Years.html
(Submitted by Caty Bergman)