The common spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, confused Charles Darwin. He observed that the plant produced millions of seeds so small that, like dust, they could be blown miles by the wind. Logic told him that these orchids should be growing in great profusion everywhere. He could not understand why that did not happen, and why the orchids appeared to grow in clumps close to one another. At last the mystery has been solved.
Unlike larger seeds such as peas and beans, which are stocked with nutrients for each independently growing plant, the tiny orchid seeds are not viable on their own. To grow and thrive they need extra nutrients provided from outside. Scientists have discovered that, like a mother breastfeeding a child, the parent orchids pass nutrients through a web of fungi connecting the mature plants to the tiny seedlings, nurturing them until they are large enough to survive on their own. Seeds too far from an adult orchid to be reached by this fungi network do not appear to survive.
June is the best time of the year to see this most common of British orchids in flower. They grow in woodland, in quarries, even on roadside verges, sometimes in large numbers. Now we know why: they are all connected underground.
