Green-winged Orchid

The Green-winged Orchids are past their best now, but it was still very special to spend a couple of hours surrounded by thousands of them in Upwood Meadows NNR. This tiny, jewel-like reserve is one of the last remaining fragments of unimproved ridge-and-furrow grassland in Cambridgeshire, and the sward is fabulously species-rich, carpeted with Cowslip, Bulbous Buttercup, Common Knapweed, Devil's-bit Scabious, Saw-wort, Tormentil, Betony, Greater Burnet and Adder's-tongue, with occasional patches of local rarities such as Sulphur Clover and Heath Violet. 

One of its most special occupants is Mousetail (see extra), an annual member of the Buttercup family which grows in seasonally flooded, nutrient-rich soils in areas disturbed by machinery or animals, such as hollows on ploughed land, rutted tracks and gateways in pastures. Although it is difficult to assess trends in this inconspicuous and sporadic species, which was known in Britain by 1597, it appears to have declined significantly as the countryside has become 'tidier'. Many sites were lost before 1930, probably through the disuse of commons, re-surfacing of tracks and the drainage and filling of small ponds. Upwood Meadows is one of the only places locally where it can be found regularly, growing in cattle-trampled areas around a water trough.