Near the Krunch cafe at the skateboard park there is a small patch of land where the fertile topsoil was scraped off leaving the subsoil exposed. Low fertility favours wild flowers because the grass is less vigorous and doesn't overwhelm them.
For a couple of years now, amateur naturalist Simon Harding has spotted the flat leaf rosettes of bee orchids and this year three of them have flowered.
The flowers slightly resemble a particular female bee and even smells like one (a bee told me). Male bees attempt to mate with the flower and get covered in pollen which they then transfer to another bee orchid flower.
They probably evolved together, the bee and the flower, but unfortunately that particular species of bee is very rare in the UK so both bee and flower end up rather frustrated. Bee orchids have to self-pollinate in this country.
In the Mediterranean region the solitary bee Eucera longicornis does pollinate bee orchids.
All Photos: Simon Harding
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