Heath spotted orchid
Dactylorhiza maculata
Family · Orchidaceae · Harmless
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The orchid of mountain bogs and wet meadows, with a dense conical spike of pale pink flowers covered in purple lines and dots, and leaves almost always dark-blotched.
Uplands · Streams and ditches · Fields and pasture
Also known asspotted orchid, moorland spotted orchid
How to tell it
Elongated leaves with transverse dark brown blotches, which give the name. A dense conical spike of twenty to fifty pale pink or nearly white flowers, each with a broad, shallowly lobed lip covered in purple lines and dots forming a looped pattern. A slender short spur.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None to encourage. The tubers are palmate, with fingers, which gave rise to the folk name palm of Christ and to much old magical and medicinal use that is not repeated today.
The law says
Protected by CITES and national law, like all wild orchids. Photograph it, do not pick it or dig up the tuber.