Identifying Orchis species
Orchis includes Early purple and Green winged orchids. Generally speaking, the flower shape resembles a human body. However assigning a flower to a particular Genus of orchid isn’t straightforward and plants are often re-assigned when new evidence comes to light. For example, you may know that Burnt orchid Neotinea ustulata was until recently listed under Orchis.
Identifying Early purple orchid – Orchis mascula
Here are some photos I took of this flower in profusion in the Battle area in Sussex in grass and hedgerows on May Day. According to Plantlife, the flowers arrive about the same time as bluebells – that’s a combo I’d like to see! The leaves I saw were about 10cm long, broad, glossy and spotted. Those spots are noticeably arranged in rows along the leaf rather than across it.

Large purple orchid flowers
The big blousy flowers were vibrant purple on red stems. The plants I saw that were in full flower were about 20cm tall. Each flower tends to have three lower lobes with the central one slightly notched, although the notch is hard to see in my photos. Apparently the flowers can also be found in paler pinks and even white, and the stems can contain less red than the ones I saw, making ID more complicated. The flowers have a long spur behind.


Compare with Lady orchid Orchis purpurea below, which only has two main lower lobes in the flower.
Identifying Green winged orchid – Orchis morio
I saw these flowers at about the same time as the Early purple orchid and they were about the same height. They were growing in shortish grass on chalk. I noticed that the leaves had no markings. I also noticed that the purple flowers were a similar colour, but the stems were green to purple rather than the more eye catching green to red mentioned above. The actual flower was a different shape, with the upper sepals being bent round in front of the flower to form a stripey hood or wings. Although I was expecting the wings to be green, I couldn’t see any green colouring in the flower at all.


Identifying Lady orchid – Orchis purpurea

I found this blousy plant in mid May in a clearing deep in Denge Wood in Kent. The flower spike looked superficially like a large Burnt orchid and I can see why they were assigned to the same Genus until recently. I found them quite easy to spot, being larger than both the above species with a flower spike about 30cm high.
In the pic below you can see the wide glossy unspotted basal leaves which were about 5cm across. You can see that the leaves nearest the stems are sheathing them.

The flower spike has a conical tip with about 15 flowers. The flowers are in shades of purple and white. Each flower is about 1 to 2cm across and 2cm long with a purple lady’s bonnet formed from three fused sepals. The white lip below has two narrow side lobes resembling arms. The body separates into two main lower lobes or wide legs, usually with a tiny third central lobe – no it’s not a man orchid ;). The white parts of the flowers I saw were speckled with purple and purple hairs. The spur behind was small and downturned.


I’ve read that the flowers are “sweetly vanilla scented” but once again I forgot to sniff them!
Read more about Orchis species
I have tagged blog posts mentioning Orchis species including Early purple orchid, Lady orchid and Green winged orchid with Orchis
https://photographingwildflowers.co.uk/tag/orchis/
2021 was a particularly good year for orchids in my neck of the woods! In 2024 I found orchids in France as well as Kent.
More about Orchids in general – pages which I’m updating as I go.