Neottia nidus-avis Bird's-nest Orchid

A pale, honey-brown coloured plant with very reduced, pale, sheathing, scale-like leaves, which grows up to 50cm in height in the deep, moist humus that forms in densely-shaded beech woods, or sometimes in woods with Hazel or Small-leaved Lime. The densely clustered, fleshy roots bear a superficial resemblance to a bird's nest, from which it gets its common name, and the hooded flowers are produced in dense spike. It is a calcicole which only occurs on base-rich soils, particularly those formed on chalk or limestone. Although it has a widespread distribution in Britain, it is most frequent in the beechwoods found on chalk in southern England and has been lost from many of its former sites. It has It is rare in Wales and it is on the rare plant registers of those counties where it does occur, including Glamorgan (VC 41). It is very scarce in Glamorgan with just sporadic appearances in the native beechwoods of southeastern glamorgan and exttremel rare in West Glamorgan where there has been just one record in the last 40 years, from Park Woods in Gower. Bird's-nest Orchid does not conatin chloroplasts or chlorophyll and is incapable of photosynthesis. Its roots forms an obligate realtionship with mycorhizal soil fungi belonging to the order Sebacinales, which invade the roots of the orchid forming tightly coiled, hyphal threads called pelotons inside the cells. Some of the organic and inorganic nutrients absorbed from the soil by the fungus are transported to the pelotons. Each peloton lives for just a few days after which they are broken down inside the root cells releasing nutrients which are then assimilated by the orchid. In this way, the orchid is completely dependent on the fungus. Plants that employ this type of non-photosynthetic nutritional strategy are called mycoheterotrophs.

Native