Northern marsh orchid

Dactylorhiza purpurella is a perennial terrestrial orchid native to north-western Europe. It typically grows to a height of 10–15 cm, though it can occasionally reach 40 cm. The plant develops from tuberous roots that are finger-like (digitate) in form, long and tapering.

Two varieties are recognised:

• Dactylorhiza purpurella var. cambrensis (R.H.Roberts) R.M.Bateman & Denholm - coastal Great Britain and Denmark
• Dactylorhiza purpurella subsp. purpurella - Ireland and northern Great Britain. Recorded from Co. Donegal in Ireland.

Dactylorhiza purpurella (northern marsh orchid) was first recognized as a distinct species in 1920, when it was described as Orchis purpurella by the British botanists Thomas Stephenson and Thomas Alan Stephenson. The original description was based on specimens growing in a hay meadow near Aberystwyth in West Wales, with additional reference to material from the English Lake District and the Isle of Arran. Despite its distinctive appearance, its recognition as a separate species came relatively late, with Jocelyn Brooke and Gavin Bone (1950) noting that "many British botanists–wherever they may have happened to live–seem to have possessed ... a blindspot where the marsh orchids are concerned".

[Source: Wikipedia]