Dense Flowered Orchid

Short description:

A small pale orchid with stems of 12-25cm high, few light green leaves, tiny (3-4mm) creamy white flowers with greenish- pink hues forming a dense cylindrical spike

Noteworthy characteristics:

This is an orchid that can be easily overlooked due to its pale colouring and small size. A treat to find and definitely worth searching for at peak flowering time.

Of Mediterranean distribution, the Irish orchid is absent from the British flora, making its occurrence in Ireland extremely interesting and botanically puzzling. The Burren is the stronghold for this wild orchid in Ireland

Uses and other points of interest:

There are no specific uses recorded for the Irish orchid in Ireland.

Personal note:

I was very happy this Summer (2021) to find a few specimens of these orchids in the Burren at the perfect time as the flowers were fresh and nicely blooming. Very easy to miss due to its small size and pale colouring further compounded by the fact that it doesn’t tend to hang around for too long. I have always found greenish/pale coloured flowers fascinating and despite the tiny size of the flowers I find them to be quiet pretty, closer observation reveals interesting colour tones and markings.

This year (2022) I am very happy to say that on return to the site where these flowers were blooming last year I was delighted to find a number of new plants in the area, I was also very pleased to find a number of plants in a new area.

Conservation Status

Classed as near threatened in the Red Data List of Vascular Plants 2016