Dark Red Helleborine

This was taken yesterday afternoon, it was overcast and the light was poor, but I thought I had better record this historic flowering of the dark red helleborine (Epipactis atrorubens) while there is still chance.  Every year for the last five years I have watched this location on Gus's walking route over the Knott as one or two plants produced a rosette and then a flowering spike, only for the spike to be nipped off by a browsing deer before the flowers opened.

This year I have counted 7 flower spikes at the spot, and on our first walk after two weeks on Raasay, I saw that this particular plant was actually flowering.  Later in the week, two more plants had open flowers.  This morning, however, two of the three flowering plants had vanished, with no sign of the stump of the spike nor the leaves.

The browsing roe deer of the Knott are no respecters of the rare and unusual, and orchid spikes are presumably tasty morsels to vary the diet.  The plants have perhaps survived a little longer this year as regenerating coppiced hazel shrubs have closed in around the footpath.

Dark red helleborines are nationally scarce plants, largely confined to shallow soils and rocky habitats of the hard limestones of the north and west of Britain.  Had we made it down from Dun Caan to the eastern limestone cliffs on Raasay two weeks ago, we might have seen the plants growing there in one of their few Scottish localities.

A quick update on other matters.  Treatment of my leukaemia with cladribine has been delayed for a few weeks while I have infusions of a soluble iron compound to bring my blood iron levels up to something more like normal.  Several weeks on the ferrous sulphate (constipation) pills made almost no difference.  Meanwhile, I am getting plenty of rest, eating well, taking Gus for gentle walks, and now we are back home, I am going for weekly perforation again.  I don't want to tempt fate, but in ten months I have managed to avoid any infections despite having a very compromised immune system.  Yes, I am tired all the time, but life one day at a time is as good as it can be.

Posted on 1st July, 2017