A rare wild orchid has been found at Trinity College Dublin after the university stopped mowing the lawn.
The broad-leaved helleborine appeared alongside second orchid species the pyramidal orchid in the Front Square.
TCD’s Professor Jenny McElwain, from the School of Natural Sciences, found the plant which has grown to about two feet.
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She told RTE: “It’s absolutely remarkable.”
Speaking about the rare helleborine, she added: “Botanists are known to get excited about plants, but we really did get excited about this one.
“It’s really unusual to find this orchid anywhere. It’s rare.
“It’s extra unusual to find it in the middle of Trinity, right in Front Square, in the middle of the city.”
Ireland is home to around 30 species of wild orchids, found in fields, bogs, woods and mountains. The helleborine now gracing Trinity’s lawn is more usually found in woodlands and has small purple flowers.
Prof McElwain says she believes the orchids now growing at Trinity are the result of ‘No Mow May’ - which the university decided to extend throughout the summer.
The international campaign calls on people not to mow their lawns to let wildflowers grow for pollinating insects.
She added: “We wanted to implement a positive measure for biodiversity. So, we just simply stopped mowing this lawn in May. And that was difficult to do, because a lot of people really like finely cut lawns.
“But we stopped mowing, and this wonderful orchid began to emerge.
“And there’s not just one - there are three orchids, including another species.
“So, we actually have an orchid-rich meadow.
“That’s a botanist’s dream and our only intervention has been to stop mowing the lawns.”
But how did the orchids get there?
Prof McElwain says it could have blown in, been carried by a bird or may have been underground for decades just waiting for the right conditions to thrive.
“The right conditions in this case happened to be not mowing the lawns,” she said.
