Mercedes' English Class

The Ghost Orchid is one of Britain’s rarest and loveliest wild flowers. The plant’s name refers to its pallid features, mysterious beauty and intermittent appearances. The Ghost Orchid rarely appears above ground and is very well camouflaged in the woods and forests where it grows. Traditionally, the best time to see a ghost is at night and, in fact, botanists sometimes look for the Ghost Orchid when it is dark; they use a powerful torch, shining the light parallel to the ground to help them to see the flower.

The Ghost Orchid was first found in Britain in 1854 by Mary Anderton Smith. Botany was considered a very suitable pastime for young ladies at the time, and in 19th-century Britain women often made important botanical discoveries. But although a lot of people have looked for it since Mary first found it, this plant has only occasionally been spotted in Britain again.

One notable sighting came in 1953, when botanist Rex Graham, who had been searching for years in the hope of finding the Ghost Orchid, decided to take a moment’s rest, sat down on a tree stump and, while lighting his pipe, saw the orchid in front of him. History does not relate whether he ever actually smoked his pipe!

More years went by with no confirmed sightings and in 2001, the Ghost Orchid was officially declared extinct in the British Isles. The last British specimen, we were told, had died. Nevertheless, botanists continued to look for the orchid. One of them, Mark Jannink, carefully researched its preferred habitats and records of where and when it had been found. He discovered that many of the sightings came after a cold winter.

The winter of 2008-9 was cold. Jannink identified ten possible sites and visited each one of them every fortnight throughout the summer of 2009. Finally, on 20th September 2009, he found a single small specimen in a wood only a few kilometres from where Mary Anderton Smith had first found it all those years ago.