Get a free Orchid Observers ID guide! | Orchid Observers

With the very last of the British orchids now in flower (Autumn lady’s-tresses), its your last chance this year to get hold of our orchid ID guide to learn where to find it and how to identify this beautiful species. If you don’t spot any flowers, you can still help out by identifying photos uploaded by others or by transcribing historical herbarium sheets from our collection.

Photo showing a few of the guides laid out on a table
Get your copy of the Orchid Observers guide for free while stocks last!

Printed copies of our 34-page Orchid Observers Identification Guide are now available free of charge while our stocks last. This beautiful guide is illustrated with photographs of all 29 wild orchids included in the study, as well as species distribution maps and details on flowering times.

If you would like a printed copy, please email orchid@nhm.ac.uk with your full postal address and we will pop one in the mail to you! They’ll be sent out until we run out of our stock, so if you don’t manage to get your hands on one of our printed copies, the guide is also available to download as a PDF.

Wild orchids in August – what to look out for | Orchid Observers

Kath Castillo, our Orchid Observers Project Officer, tells us about the orchids you can search for out in the field this month.

August is nearly here and with it the start of the holiday season, so if you are planning a walking holiday or a bit of wildlife photography in the UK, there are some stunning species on our list to look out for and photograph for Orchid Observers.

A flower of the marsh helleborine. © Fred Rumsey
A flower of the marsh helleborine. © Fred Rumsey

Flowering now and into late August, the marsh helleborine (Epipactis palustris) is a fairly large orchid with loose clusters of pink and white flowers with a white frilly lower petal. Continue reading “Wild orchids in August – what to look out for | Orchid Observers”