Monthly Archives: July 2016

The orchid meadow

There is always something new to discover in Adel Woods, and two years ago our treasurer,  Judith, brought to our attention a secluded meadow with a beautiful display of common spotted orchids.

Common Spotted Orchid

The meadow is a wonderfully tranquil oasis in the woods, under threat of two kinds of change – firstly the normal process of succession, whereby open grassland slowly changes into oak woodland; and secondly the invasion of Himalayan Balsam.

The meadow already has a range of small oak trees growing within its borders, and it is surrounded by thousands of specimens of Himalayan Balsam – many of which are just coming into flower and will send their seeds onto the meadow.

Removing trees

Our task today, under the guidance of Steve Joul, senior ranger with Leeds City Council, was therefore threefold.  Firstly, to find out how many common spotted orchids we have in the meadow.  Secondly, to remove some of the trees.  Thirdly, to remove as much of the Himalayan Balsam as possible from the immediate vicinity of the orchids.

The great thing is that there was an even more splendid display of orchids than the last couple of years.  Steve was keen to count them and came to a figure of 2,690! – a figure far higher than any of us expected.

As Steve counted the orchids, the rest of us cleared oak trees (about 5) and pulled up Himalayan Balsam plants.  Your correspondent estimates that between us we pulled up around 20,000, and we were able to clear the entire southwest boundary of the species.

After working on the orchid meadow, we went to have a look at Adel Bog, another beautiful secluded spot in the woods.  Here we were treated to a wonderful display of heath spotted orchids, bog asphodel, tormentil and other plants.

Heath Spotted Orchid with yellow flowers of the Bog Asphodel in background

Heath spotted orchids (dactylorhiza maculata) are very similar to common spotted orchids (dactylorhiza fuchsia).  Steve can tell you the difference!

Another wonderful morning in Adel Woods.

Inspecting the flora on Adel Bog

Thank you to Alan and Diane Yarker who welcomed Friends of Adel Woods to their smallholding today – to mark National Meadows Day.

Alan gave us an interesting talk about aspects of running a smallholding, and management of a meadow in the traditional way to encourage bio-diversity. In the course of his talk, Alan told us about a very interesting website “Tracks in Time” at http://tithemaps.leeds.gov.uk/TwinMaps.aspx?township=WYL333_334 which enables us to compare historic maps with modern day maps – it is very interesting to see how Alwoodley and Adel have changed over the years.

Unlike last year, when the temperature was very cold, and rain almost horizontal, the heavens confounded the gloomy weather forecast with a beautiful afternoon.

After the talk we were free to wonder around the smallholding and Steve and Alan took us on a tour of the meadow to have a first look at the wildflowers. What appeared from a distance to be a field of grass contained a treasure trove of wildflowers. Your correspondent is no expert, but can confidently tell you that among other plants in this picture you can see white clover, red clover, cats-ear, birdsfoot trefoil, mouse-ear, common sorrell, yorkshire fog and crested dogstail. There may well be some smooth hawksbeard and plantain too.

One of the “stars” of the meadow is the population of common spotted orchids which have been increasing in recent years.

After a cup of tea and biscuits provided by Steve Joul, Steve led a group of us in an initial survey of the meadow. The first step is to choose an area of the meadow at random and stake out a quadrat – an area two metres by two metres. The next step is to note the range of flora we can see within the quadrat, and finally to estimate what percentage of the quadrat is taken up by each species of plant.

Ideally we would have surveyed ten quadrats, but we had time for only two. However, each of our quadrats contained about twenty species of plant.

Having completed our survey of the quadrats, we quickly counted the common spotted orchids and were able to delight Alan with the news that there were at least 123!

Common Spotted Orchid

Birdsfoot Trefoil

Cats Ear