Spring in the Algarve

The Algarve coast in springtime - picture Rob Petley-Jones

It seems amazing that my last post was written in contemplation of the forthcoming orchid season and now, here we are, well on the way to the end of the season with many trip reports to catch up with.

Our first trip this year was to the by now familiar territory of the Algarve in Portugal, but it was a bit too late to see many of the species which frequently come into flower at the end of February or the beginning of March. Nevertheless we went to walk in some new places and found some good sites for a number of species that have been ‘lost ‘ to us due to the onslaught of development which continues to destroy so many wildlife habitats, albeit slightly more slowly in the current economic climate. Given the profound nature of the recession in Portugal, and in other parts of Europe, it is difficult to understand what drives the development of so many new sites when earlier projects have been abandoned and languish empty with rank weeds taking over where rare and beautiful wildflowers once flourished.

One new spot we visited was the freshwater spring of Fonte Benemola which lies behind the quaint walled town of Querenca. The area is predominantly limestone and so many orchid species grow there including Ophrys lusitanica the rather rare and strange relative of the Mirror Orchid (Ophrys speculum). Other species we saw included the Man Orchid (Orchis anthropophorum), The Woodcock Orchid (Ophrys scolopax), the Yellow Bee Orchid (Ophrys lutea) and Broad-leaved Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine). Another lovely Algarve wildflower grows there in far greater numbers than we have seen before – Scilla peruviana – a lovely, pyramid-shaped, purple scilla which is one of my favourites. The other limestone hill Rocha da Pena which is close by has many of the same species of orchids flowering there.

We saw more Bee Orchids than usual in the Algarve this spring.

One species that we saw far more of on this trip was the Bee Orchid – Ophrys apifera. This was in part due to our later than usual arrival in the Algarve, but we also saw them growing in large colonies on the roadside verges right out to the west of the area. We had really only seen this species in Boca do Rio just west of Lagos, but these ‘new’ plants were much further out and we had not seen the plants at Boca do Rio for several years. The Bee Orchid despite being one of the species which actively extends its territory once it becomes established is nevertheless an unreliable flowrer and will often disappear from locations only to reappear several years later and sometimes in greater numbers than had previously been observed.

Anacamptis champagneuxii photographed near Monchique

Other notable species from this trip were the small and localised groups of Dense-flowered Orchid (Orchis intacta) on the roadside verges up in the mountains beyond Monchique. These are not easy to spot but are very close to the summit of Foia and are on the left hand side of the road on the way back down to Monchique. Also growing in the same place were two other species that we had not seen there before: Early-purple Orchid (Orchis mascula) (the considerable drop in temperature up at Foia would account for this early-flowering species being there at the end of April), and also Anacamptis champagneuxii – the subspecies of the Green-winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio). As we had only found a few plants of the latter in a small colony between Silves and Monchique until this trip, this new location was a source of great satisfaction and we took lots of photographs – just as well as they had mysteriously disappeared when we returned to bid them farewell before leaving for home a few days later.