The bee orchid is a sneaky mimic - the flower’s velvety lip looks like a female bee. Males fly in to try to mate with it and end up pollinating the flower. Sadly, the right bee species doesn’t…

This unassuming orchid is easily overlooked. It is found patchily across the UK, but has been declining for decades.

The pyramidal orchid lives up to its name - look for a bright pinky-purple, densely packed pyramid of flowers atop a green stem. It likes chalk grassland, sand dunes, roadside verges and quarries…

A short, but pretty plant of unimproved grasslands, the Green-winged orchid gets its name from the green veins in the 'hood' of its flowers. Look for it in May and June.

The Marsh helleborine is a beautiful orchid of fens, wet grassland and dune slacks. Growing in profusion in places, look for reddish stems and white-and-pink flowers.

The Bird's-nest orchid gets its name from its nest-like tangle of roots. Unlike other green plants, it doesn’t get its energy from sunlight. Instead, it grows as a parasite on tree roots, so…

The fly-shaped flowers of this fascinating plant are attractive to insects - but not the ones you might expect!

Look for the deep magenta, star-shaped flowers of Marsh cinquefoil in marshes, bogs, fens and wetlands in the north, west and east of the UK.