BEE ORCHIDS

There are bee orchids on the school grounds of Scoil San Treasa!

Local nature-lovers have known for years that orchids grow on the patch
of land between sacristy and school
at North Avenue.

Last year, the grass above the school was left uncut in June because the mower was broken. Imagine the thrill of discovering exquisite bee orchids growing in grassland that has been run across by children for thirty years!

The Beautiful Bee Orchid.

What an amazing plant! You have seen this on postcards from the Burren and perhaps on sand dunes. You may even have thought “Oops, don’t touch that. There’s a bee on it!”

No, there is no bee on it. The flower looks like three delicate pink petals with a bee perched on them. This is so that a
passing male bee will think it is a lady bee and land there which will pollinate it (make seeds form). However there is one
problem – there are no longer any bees in Ireland that will fall for the flower’s trick. There probably once were, but they went extinct in the last Ice Age. So when this fails, the plant has two little spikes called “pollinia” which bend over and spread the pollen instead to fertilise the plant.

Soon the petals fade but the seeds will form over a month
or two, if undisturbed, and finally spread thousands of tiny dust-like seeds in the autumn. So will you have more next year? No. The remarkable life cycle of the bee orchid is not over yet.
The parent plant will die and the seeds must land in grass which has a certain type of underground fungus.
The germinating seed forms a relationship with this fungus.

This is beneficial to both, and helps the developing orchid plant to grow under the ground and reach flowering age maybe six or seven years later –at which point the cycle starts again.

You can see that its no use digging up a bee orchid for your
garden. Having flowered it will die and the seed potential will be lost for lack of its own specialised habitat. That’s why we do not mow them down before the seed pods form!

A Special Way of Mowing

In nature, grazing animals eat the grass. Their droppings return the minerals to the soil and their hooves push seeds into the broken turf.  The herd moves on as it grazes so the grass is not too trampled.

We aim to copy this pattern in our mowing regime. We mow
in spring to let sunshine reach the meadow and remove the thatch.

Then we admire the beautiful nodding cowslips which are such
a feature of Scoil San Treasa!

A month or two go by and the cowslips set their seed. Then in early May we mow carefully again.  After this we leave it alone so that we can watch the orchids and the glorious colour of the June display.

In the school grounds, a path will be mown through the grassland so that the orchids can be shown to pupils; most kids are fascinated by them, as indeed are adults. The grass will be left then for at least two months until the orchid seeds are safely on their way. After cutting, the clippings will be left on the ground for several days so that the seeds will fall out. The clippings are then removed because they might enrich the soil too much as they decompose (wild flowers need less fertility)

Grassland and a Little Ecology

What do you think of as a threatened habitat? Tropical rain
forest?  Boglands? Of all the endangered habitats grassland is probably the least thought of. City dwellers think of it as one basic species “grass”, a sort of potential lawn.  On the other hand, country people may know about species but consider
unimproved grassland as a waste of grazing! In fact open grassland is an ecosystem in its own right, with characteristic plant communities which are supported by soils of various kinds,
invertebrate populations and, importantly, surrounding
conditions such as the water table, exposure to sunlight, and grazing practices.

The type of grassland we have here around the church and school would be called “species-diverse dry limestone grassland”

If, just for curiosity, you were to compare a square metre of this with a similar piece of ordinary lawn or park, you would find in the meadow relatively few grasses, a great many
flowering plants, and some mosses which are an essential
feature. (This would of course be easiest to do in June or July when the meadow is a carpet of colour.)  The lawn patch will consist mostly of cultivated grasses and a few vigorous plants such as Buttercup and Dandelion.

So what will you find on your patch of meadow?

A Partial List of our Local Wildflowers

In spring: April and May; Cowslips, Primroses, and hybrids
between the two. The Cuckooflower –a native of damp meadows, familiar to country folk  - what is it doing growing at the school fence? Still, there it is!

June; Look out for; Dog-Daisy, sometimes called Ox-Eye Daisy.
An indicator species of limestone grassland

Ladies Bedstraw  -guess why it’s called that? It is sweetly scented like honey and was once used for stuffing mattresses.

Birds-Foot Trefoil;  so called because of the classic claw-like shape of the seedpods – have a look in September.

Clovers are natures fertiliser  - they fix nitrogen in the soil from the air. (No pollution!) Usually covered with bees who love the nectar   - you can taste it for yourself by gently pulling out one floret and tasting the white end- hence the childish name of “Honeysuckers”.

Vetches; these dainty purplish climbers are members of the Pea family like the two above. How can you tell? They have dark green leaves, a pea-shaped flower and climb by tendrils. Try to find two vetches holding hands. See their black pods in autumn that open with a pop and twist!

Speedwells; small blue flowers like an alien’s face and Fumitory, pink flowers like fingers with tiny pink nails.

Selfheal, a glowing purple.

Knapweed –a relation of the Thistle family.

Some commoner wild plants like Buttercup and Dandelion. These can be very invasive and would crowd out the meadow plants if encouraged. They are kept in check by a stable plant ecosystem and a careful mowing regime

The Jewels in the Crown – Orchids.

As well as the very striking Bee Orchid, three other orchids have been recorded from the church grounds.

Common Spotted Orchid – usually only a couple of plants, 
behind the sacristy, Twayblade  seen here once and hard to spot with its small greenish flower and Pyramidal Orchid. A blazing reddish conical flower. You can’t miss it if it appears  - which
isn’t every year.

Tread carefully – orchids wont tolerate trample damage.

Written by Kate MacLochlainn for Scoil St. Treasa. Mount Merrion