A tour of the orchids on a Dordogne hillside

IT'S not the outing you expect on a Sunday, no church bells and nothing on a road that keeps going higher and higher to a hidden away place where we meet for an orchid walk, writes Carol Miers.

Montalieuhaut is near the Dordogne village of St Cybranet, over the hills you can see the walls of Domme, and we are guided by a small orange arrow to a reception area where around 60 people are gathered.

And then you're off, with experts in front of panels of flower life cycles, before feeling the warm breeze on a south-facing slope, an idyllic setting where grasses are bending under blue azure skies.

Then we recognise friends and watch others with intent expressions giving gestures of surprise or simply join their commitment to looking at the ground and scouring the earth of this ancient landscape.

As they say, it's a botanical heritage of orchids. Nowadays these folk are the ones preserving the history, wildness and diversity in these French country meadows. Here then is an orchid surprise.

Not only is this the fifteenth year of this walk, but the restaurant owner, Jean-Luc Calmon, come 'Responsable' for the land has worked hard with delicate grass cutting around red sticks marking orchid sightings. We follow these across lawns or along the prepared walkways through rocky paths and under oak trees.

Bernard Gerbeau co-founder of SFO Aquitaine (Société Française d'Orchidophilie) explains that their organisation aims to map and record the extent and existence of orchids.

These expert experts are armed with books, including Atlas des orchidées de France, showing habitats and the sites for orchid species across France.

What of the orchids themselves? The insect named ones are so like the female bee or fly, that the male is attracted to fertilise the flower.

Then the bécasse or woodcock, with the bird's profile and the 'labelle' like a baby in a cradle, someone says, is less rounded than the abeille, or bee.

There are cephalanthera (longifolia) whose pretty small white and cream flower heads are near to, as we can see, the lily of the valley flowers. But how can they know so much about these tiny floral cameos?

Two hundred and fifty wild varieties are found in Aquitaine and here today we cross perhaps thirteen species of different numbers of each.

The monkey orchid, Damien Villate a Lot naturalist, says, is always found around Cenac; the neotia ovata the most common French orchid has found this new name, and another commoner is the intriguing green 'homme pendule' or 'dangling man'.

Then, after lunch we walk out along a prepared meadow path where there's a shower of flowers, called the Violet bird's nest orchid, which true to form are spread around the mature root of a sick or dead tree. No, Damien says, these flowers are not parasites but they profit from the 'mur' ripe root, it seems.

So as one plant flourishes, another recedes. When trees grow high, blocking the light, fewer orchids may appear in those areas. When another plant that emits toxins grows, there's less of another orchid.

This ebb and flow, the twists and turns along the pathways brings you closer to the interconnectedness of life across the Dordogne hillsides.

Comments

[Michael & Ann Hall, Cladech]

For over 40 years we have enjoyed the wonderful wild Aquitaine orchids. The road verges were in parts almost solid with thousands of all sorts. Sadly, the current devotion to cutting the grass verges earlier & earlier has destroyed most of these lovely plants. As an example, the road from Merle (in Cladech) down to the River Dordogne at Envaux was one of the most memorable, two weeks ago we discovered just one or two lone plants.

It would be fantastic if each commune selected one or more of these little country lanes for late cutting of the verges to preserve the orchids, they could again become orchid paradise.

[Craig McGinty]

Dear Michael & Ann,
Lovely to hear from you, and I have read of some places operating 'fauchage tardif' where they at least delay the cutting of verges. Maybe such ideas take time to spread.

It is a shame to see some communes are a bit trigger happy when it comes to cutting verges, often claiming that it is a question of road safety.