Lady monkey

A trip up to Oxfordshire to visit the care home and then off to look for orchids and specifically the unusual Lady-monkey orchid. This orchid is a hybrid between two rare species, the Lady orchid and the Monkey orchid. It first appeared in 2006 and is only known at one site in the world. Two years ago I went to look for it but was too late, it had already flowered. This year I thought I was too early. I found quite a lot of flowering stems but the buds were still tightly closed and then I spotted one that was almost fully opened. It was well worth getting soaked for.