Early Purple Orchid

Early Purple orchids - what can you say? They're orchids, they're the earliest orchids to appear and they're... purple. Well, most of them are purple. Actually some of them are white and there's a lot of variation in the shades of purple and pink in the rest. They seem to like the ground to be a bit wet (so that restricts them to, oh let's see, *all* of Ireland!) and they're very easy to spot as they get established a good bit before the grasses start to really grow again and hence tend to tower up out of the short-cropped turf. They're common throughout the Burren, almost any grassy roadside you drive along will have a sprinkling of them, if you slow down long enough to see them.

Ralph Doyle