BRITISH AND IRISH ORCHIDS IN A CHANGING WORLD

摘要

The orchid flora of Britain and Ireland is one of the best studied floras anywhere, and many works on these charismatic plants have been published; notable accounts include those by Brooke & Bone (1950) and Summerhayes (1968) for Britain, Sex & Sayers(2004) and Sayers & Sex (2008) for Ireland and Sell & Murrell (1996), Foley & Clarke (2005) and Harrap & Harrap (2005) for Britain and Ireland. Recent accounts list 56 orchid species in 20 genera (Table 1) that are native or possibly native to the 'British Isles' (including Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands) (Bateman, 2006), of which 29 species in 13 genera are found in Ireland (Sayers 8c Sex, 2008).To these species may possibly be added Ophrys tenthredinifera Willd. (sawfly orchid; Fig. 1) because a single plant was found in Dorset in spring 2014, but whether this becomes an established and confirmed member of the British flora remains to be seen (Chalk, 2014). This species is found throughout the Mediterranean region (Pedersen 8c Faurholdt, 2007) and this new finding represents a substantial range expansion if it is confirmed as a natural event.