Pyramidal orchid
Anacamptis pyramidalis
Family · Orchidaceae · Harmless
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The easiest wild orchid to find in the Peninsula, and the one most people see without realising they are looking at an orchid. A bright pink pyramid of dozens of tiny flowers, on limestone verges and pastures in May.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Uplands · Dunes and sand
Also known aspyramid orchid
How to tell it
The inflorescence is a clear pyramid as it starts opening, rounding off as the lower flowers open. Each flower has a lip divided into three equal lobes and two ridges at the throat. Intense carmine pink, rarely white.
What it is confused with
Bee orchid
Ophrys apifera
Both are limestone-verge orchids and both protected. Bee orchid has few large flowers mimicking an insect; pyramidal orchid has dozens of small flowers packed into a pyramid.
Open sheet →What it is for
None, and that is the point. Wild orchids depend on specific soil fungi and do not survive transplanting or picking. Photograph it and leave it.
The law says
All wild orchids are protected by CITES and by national law. Do not pick it or dig up the tuber.