Nant-y-Ffrith, 16th August 2020

We are back here for one thing only, and that is to have another look at the Deformed Broad-leaved Helleborines. Hopefully there will be more open flowers this week.
Yes there are but for some reason photographing these seems to be fraught with difficulties. Still not many flowers out but still showing non-sequential opening.

I am planning a short article for the Journal of the Hardy Orchis Society regarding these oddities. Consequently I returned to see them on the 29th August and 12th September to see if they were setting seed. They were not. The flowers seemed to wither, and while some ovaries did seem to swell, they came to nothing.

Llanymynech Rocks, 18th August 2020 (SJ 26284 21745)

We have never seen Autumn Lady`s Tresses in the English Quarry and but a few in the Welsh Quarry. So this year we go around the corner of the Welsh Quarry and head for a steep rabbit grazed slope where we find plenty, albeit widely scattered. Give it another week and I reckon twice as many will be easily found a week or so away. Have some of the bottom flowers been damaged by the heat wave? This area is really a wildflower-lover`s dream with so many different species to be seen. Well worth that climb up the steep old tramway incline, but perhaps just once a year.

Rhyd y Foel, 20th August 2020 (SH 91209 76282)

The track through the copse up to the open ground is looking a bit ragged, but plenty of Early Purple Orchid seed heads can be seen. Perhaps it will look more cheerful next spring. Anyway we soon find the Autumn Lady's-tresses, and whilst there is a good number I am not convinced that there are quite as many as last year, but could be wrong. On the way down I spot a small clump of ripened seed heads that are just the right size for Green-winged orchids. That is something to investigate next year.
We were going to go to Gop Hill before I was informed that sheep were grazing there, and that while last year there were thousands of ALTs, this year barely 30 were spotted by one enthusiast. That grazing may not be a bad thing in the long run. It will push the gorse and ragwort back. Both seemed to be taking over a bit in 2019.

Half a twist, three-quarters, a full turn, another half twist, twice around the block, and the full helter skelter.

A final excursion to Llandudno and Great Orme on Setember 2nd yielded no Autumn Lady`s-tresses. I suspect I was just a bit too late and the seeding spikes were disguised amid the grass and other vegetation.