Bee read about these early purple orchids (orchis mascula), at Out with Mol, and wanted to see them. They are not particularly rare, but to see them in this abundance is unusual, and they're very striking to see, though not as sensational as Bee's Texas bluebonnets. They're just growing on a municipal roadside verge near the plan d'eau in Trédaniel.
Bee spoke about how she'd seen bluebells that seemed to glow in the shade, which reminded me of a DH Lawrence poem 'Bavarian Gentians', though that is very much an autumn poem :
' burning dark blue, giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off light',
and the way blue flowers in shade seem, paradoxically, to glow with darkness.
~~~
And on the subject of gorgeous flowers, and blue bonnets too, come to think, a couple of photos of Princeling who we saw for the first time for ages yesterday. Still a continually sunny and cheerful character, as he has been since he was born, now running around on two legs and needing quite a bit of keeping up with.
11 comments:
Orchis mascula on the verge ~ makes one yearn for poesy. And now I expect I'll see the little ones in their colorful caps as cheery flowers running about.
Oh he is absolutely gorgeous. I am so broody at the moment I am drooling over babies and toddlers everywhere I go!!
Oh and the orchids are nice too! When I was in Sydney I went to see the "Sex and Death" exhibition in the Botanic Gardens and some of the orchids there were breathtakingly beautiful.
I hope you have a good week away.
I do believe that strolling through a blur of bluebells is almost too lovely. But baby teeth smiles under pretty scrummy too. Crumbs, doesn't the world just burst with yum sometimes?
It looks like a dream...purple orchids in a field with a stone house beyond. And so green! Sigh.
Oh, and what a cutie he is!
I'm so glad that you posted pictures of these flowers, because I couldn't imagine them at all. They don't even look like orchids unless you get up close to them . . . and then a bit.
Thanks so much for the idea/poem of "glowing in darkness." Very apt. The forested road that I referred to in my initial comment is always so dark, no matter how sunny the day. There is something rather mysterious and magical about glimpsing those glowing purple/blue carpets underneath the low-hanging trees.
Lovely picture of Princeling. May has all of the blooming gorgeousness and freshness of a young child.
Some 30+ years ago, family friends lent wife, infant son and I their beautiful house and attached woodland (bang next door to A.A. Milne's 100 Acre Wood) for a summer holiday. Early purple orchids were as abundant as bluebells throughout the woods. I've never seen them since so thanks for this reminder, Lucy.
Lovely photos. I love wild orchids -I have one growing amongst a clump of marsh marigolds in my horse trough - I hope it will multiply, but they need all sort of benefical site specific organisms to flourish.
A couple of years ago I took photos at an illustrator's house and she had beautiful botanical drawings of wild orchids.
Breathtaking. I've never seen such orchids!
What a privilege to be in touch with wild orchids on this scale. It would be a rare thing in England. How well you have captured their noble extravagance.
Gorgeous blooms, Lucy - and a gorgeous little man.
The orchids are wonderful - very stalky and much sturdier looking than the ones I am used to, from the flower shops. Beautiful!
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