Heath Spotted Orchids - Dactylorhiza maculata - Western Isles Wildflowers

Protected by Law
All wild orchids are protected by law If You remove or disturb the ground - you can be fined or imprisoned - or both. If you are wanting to move them you need to get a licence from the local council.

Pollination
Bumblebees and butterflies occasionally pollinate these flowers, but most active are Bristle Flies and the long-legged true fly.

Hybridisation
It is quite common here that you can find hybridised plants with perhaps the plant being a cross between the hebridean spotted orchid and the heath orchid.

The Heath Orchid - An Orchid Specific To The Western Isles
This lovely orchid - the heath spotted orchid is specific to the western isles. The heath orchid is quite similar to the hebridean spotted orchid and its quite difficult to tell them apart. The heath orchid does have a slight scent and is almost always a very pale pinky colour almost mauve. Here in the Hebrides, it flowers from March to August.

The heath spotted orchid is similar in appearance to the common spotted orchid (which we do not get in the Western Isles)

The exception is that the middle lobe of the three lobed petal is smaller than the two either side of it. The common orchid has three lobes of roughly the same size.

The Heath Spotted Orchid likes Acid Soil
The Heath Spotted Orchid - likes moorland, acid soil, and this orchid was seen on the damp moorland at the top of Traigh Mhor, however it doesn't really like its feet to be actually wet..

(The Hebridean-spotted orchid likes sandy lime soil. If you are on sandy machair soil looking at a pale pinkish orchid and there are no tormentil growing within the same area, you are probably looking at a hebridean spotted-orchid. (or a hybrid species that has some Hebridean spotted-orchid in it).