Autumn Lady's Tresses

Autumn Lady's Tresses Spiranthes spiralis (Fr. Spiranthe d'automne) is a species of orchid. The scientific name translates as 'spiral flowered spiral'. Fair enough...

There are around 40 species of Spiranthes around the world, of which four are found in Europe. Most of them are native to the Americas, but there are a few in Australasia too.

Autumn Lady's Tresses grow on chalk and calcareous soil in open dry habitats. Typically you would find it in abandoned unimproved pasture, grassy slopes, stable former terraces on calcareous land, roadsides, old lawns (especially those that also host a wide range of fungi such as Hygrocybes), and lawn cemeteries. Although it generally prefers open areas, it can also be found on the edges of woodlands, like the ones in these photos. 

This species is widespread in France but uncommon and localised. It flowers at the end of the growing season and this may limit how far north its distribution extends and at what altitude it can be found, as snow will inhibit the germination of seeds.

Because of its small size (at most 20 cm high) and discreet colouration it is often overlooked. If you do spot it though it is easy enough to identify, because of the distinctive spiral arrangement of the flowers. The leaves and the flowers appear at the same time, in late August and early September. A rosette of four or five leaves will be formed, and the flower stalk will appear from just beside the leaves (not from the middle of the rosette). The spiral of flowers can be clockwise or anticlockwise.

 

Ingrid aims her big lens at a tiny orchid.

The tiny flowers, if you can get down that far, are sweetly scented and provide nectar to attract diurnal insects. The visitor in my and Ingrid's photos is a Great Banded Furrow Bee Halictus scabiosae (Fr. Halicte de la scabieuse), easy to identify because of its two tone yellow abdominal bands. The white flowers of the orchid are only 5 mm in length and surrounded by bracts covered in dewy hairlike glands. 

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Like most orchids it has a strong symbiotic association with a mycorhizal fungus for exchange of nutrients.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

These photos were taken last year in the commune of Bossay sur Claise.

PhotObjectif

Rieja van Aart, a local art photographer https://riejavanaart.ultra-book.com/, recently organised a photography exhibition https://www.lepetitpressigny.fr/medias/association/Flyer_photobjectif_2026.pdf over the weekend just gone in Le Petit Pressigny. Our friend Ingrid de Winter was invited to submit works and we went to support her. There was quite a crowd on Sunday afternoon when we were there, and the quality of the works was very high. The exhibition was a credit to all concerned, and quite remarkable in such a small village (population about 350 I reckon). The venue was the old school and surrounds. I ran into a friend I hadn't seen for over a year, which was really nice, and got to chat briefly with Rieja and her husband Leonard, who I've known for a while. We encountered Ingrid on our way over as she was cycling back home in the heat!

Here are a few photos I took. I avoided taking photos of people and people's works of art out of courtesy to them as it didn't feel appropriate on the day. So you will just have to take my word for it that the exhibition was very interesting and varied.

The exhibition banner.

I got very excited as we arrived and I saw someone putting blue cloths out in the sun. Oooh goody I thought, someone is doing a cyanotype demonstration. Ahem...they turned out to be tea towels drying, after doing the lunchtime washing up...

One of the artists was producing works using compost.

You can see why I was confused -- someone had done a cyanotype!

Ingrid is a wildlife photographer, so her submissions are of birds. On the left a crow and on the right a spoonbill.

Reedmace versus Bulrush

Reedmace Typha latifolia (Fr. Massette) is the plant with the brown cylindrical seedheads that grows on the edge of ponds. It is called Cattail in North America, Cumbungi in Australia, and often, everywhere, now called Bulrush. But it is a reed, not a rush. Rushes are a different family.

 

Reedmace on the village pond (Fr. plan d'eau) in Preuilly.

 The 'bul' of Bulrush means 'big', and true bulrush is exactly that -- a gigantic rush.

 

 Bulrush on the edge of the étang (dam) at le Louroux. This is a nature reserve.

The confusion started in the 19th century, with  mass produced illustrated Bibles. For some reason Moses was depicted amongst the reedmace. Ironically, the plant the illustrators should have been depicting was actually a Papyrus.

 

 Reedmace.

In prehistoric times the rhizomes of Reedmace were eaten, in hunter-gatherer societies over 30 000 years ago. The plant was abundant and full of starch. In the 19th century there are accounts of it being used as low quality forage for horses in France, and pigs apparently adored the rhizomes. The leaves could also be dried and woven as chair seats. In modern times they are sometimes grown in natural water purification systems and the plant can be seen on the edges of many fresh water ponds. 

 

 A variety of plants, including both bulrush (left) and reedmace (right), in a phytopurification water filtration station at the Moulin de Malicorne (a private home).

Bulrush Schoenoplectus lacustris (Fr. Jonc des chaisiers) was once abundant and much valued as the raw material for cords, woven or plaited mats, wall coverings and chair seats. Harvesting the plants, processing and transforming them was an important artisanal skill. Nowadays, those skills are lost and the plant is rare. Where it is present it is generally protected.  

 

 Rush matting at the Chateau d'Azay le Rideau.

Today the buzz word you will see associated with bulrushes is 'paludiculture'. That's when peat wetland is used as a cultivated carbon sink. Drones are used to distribute the seed of reedmace, bulrush and other plants that can be used commercially if peatbog is exploited. The fluffy reedmace seed heads are harvested to be used as insulation in 'down' jackets, and the bulrush is being used in construction materials. Unfortunately both plants are being referred to by journalists as 'bulrush' so it can be confusing.

 

 Bulrush on the edge of an étang at Chambon, on a ZNIEFF (site of special scientific interest).

What To Do With a Colony of Bees or Wasps

We have honey bees Apis mellifera living in a crevice between our attic and bedroom, and another colony living above our garage. We have social wasps Vespula sp living in a crevice in the wall above our back door. What are we doing about it? Nothing. And here's why:

The wasps and the bees don't have an amical relationship. When individual bees get old and start staggering around the courtyard the wasps are right there to 'clean up'. But neither wasps nor bees are interested in us, and they rarely venture inside the house. In both cases they installed themselves before we realised what was going on. Then it's too late. Ours is a very typical situation, and luckily in both cases the insects have chosen places where they can just get on with things undisturbed by us. Really the only time social insect colonies need to be moved on or eradicated is when they move into awkward places like chimneys and the space between windows and shutters. Fortunately bumble bees rarely make nest site choices that bring them into conflict with man, but social wasps (paper wasps, 'yellow jackets' and the like), hornets and honey bees quite often do. It doesn't help that people are scared of them, a few people are dangerously allergic to them, and your idea of an awkward place might not coincide with mine.

 

A swarm of Honey Bees moving in to the gap between our bedroom and the attic.

Removing colonies alive is possible, but messy and expensive. Your house insurance might cover it if you are lucky. So most removals are done at the expense of the lives of the insects and they are poisoned before the nest is removed. To do this legally in the case of honey bees you need to establish there is a genuine safety risk for people. A good professional pest controller should mostly refuse to eradicate colonies.

 

My apiarist friend Bernard removing a colony of Honey Bees Apis mellifera (Fr. Abeilles domestiques) from a window.

So now you are asking 'Why remove the nest if the insects are dead?' Well, a colony of dead larvae is an easy target for other predatory insects. An abandoned store of honey is easy work for other honey bees to rob. They don't know it's poisoned, they will be poisoned, and their colony that they take the bounty back to will be poisoned in their turn. It is not legal to contaminate the food chain and so the entire nest needs to be removed to prevent it being robbed.

 

European Wasps Vespula germanica (Fr. Guêpe germanique).

You would be mistaken to think that blocking access to the nest is sufficient to protect the food chain. It's virtually impossible to identify and effectively block all the possible access holes. I know it would be at our place, with its crumbling mortar, decaying timber and worn stone walls. Added to that, with the current cycle of drought and flood the building will move and gaps will appear. Once one bee or wasp has found the free food, the whole of their colony will arrive to collect it within days.

 

One of the wasps preying on an old dying Honey Bee in our courtyard.

For what to do about a swarm of honey bees ie when the colony is out in the open looking for a new home but not yet installed, read my blog post: What to do About a Swarm of Bees.

A Biological Multitool in the Strawberry Patch

A recent study has described the Migrant Hover Fly Eupeodes corollae (Fr. Syrphe des corolles) as a flying 'multitool', which offers pollination, can act as a vector for beneficial microbes, and is a biological control for grey mould disease in strawberries. Wow! Plus their larvae eat aphids!

 

 Female Migrant Hover Fly.

Scientists in Sweden used the hover flies to carry the yeast Metschnikowia fruiticola between strawberry flowers in greenhouses so it would attack the grey mould Botrytis cinerea. At the same time the hover flies pollinated the strawberry flowers. The flowers pollinated by the hover flies produce better quality fruit that is bigger and a more symmetrical consumer pleasing shape. Their results showed that the hover fly activity on the flowers significantly reduced grey mould on the strawberry fruit once harvested and in cold storage. This occured even without the yeast biological control, but was even more pronounced when the yeast was present.

This species is native to Europe, North Africa and Asia, and quite abundant. With the presence of active adults and larvae you can practice interated pest control in your own garden, and enjoy these little natural gems. 

 

 Mating Migrant Hover Flies in our garden.

The Migrant Hover Fly is, as the English name suggests, a migratory species and one of the two most abundant species of hover fly in Europe. Some years there will be massive numbers crossing the Channel from France to Britain. The adults are about 11 mm long, with yellow comma shaped marks on their abdomens.

Further reading: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10340-025-01971-6

Insects on the Eperon

 On a recent outing to the Eperon de Murat nature reserve I saw a range of insects.

Forest Fly Hippobosca equina (Fr. Mouche plate). 

A blood feeding parasite of bovines primarily, but often also found on horses and dogs. It causes no discomfort to its hosts and is not a vector for disease. They do tend to freak people out though because of their scuttling movement.

Golden-ringed Dragonfly Cordulegaster boltonii (Fr. Cordulégastre annelé). 

A dragonfly that breeds in small fast tumbling streams often on hillsides. It is present throughout most of Europe but always uncommon.

Female Beautiful Demoiselle Calopteryx virgo (Fr. Caloptéryx vierge). 

This species also likes small cold swift streams and is very sensitive to oxygen levels in the water. Numbers are dwindling as water is increasingly warm and eutrophic (full of algae that use all the oxygen). 

Male Beautiful Demoiselle. 

Males are very territorial and are often to be seen perched on vegetation along the banks of their stream. Their flight is languid with quite slow wing beats, so people don't always recognise them as damselflies.

Dance flies Empis sp and pollen beetles Meligethinae all over Bath Asparagus Ornithogalum pyrenaicum. The dance flies are predatory. Bath Asparagus is foraged in the wild and sold as a great delicacy in fresh markets for about 15 euros a small bunch during its brief season.

A small carpenter bee Ceratina sp on Field Scabious Knautia arvensis. 

These bees nest in hollow plant stems, making cells containing a stock of pollen for the larva, and divided by plant pith.

Ferruginous Bee-grabber fly Sicus ferrugineus on Field Scabious. This fly is quite common throughout Europe but so weird looking that people usually don't know what they are looking at. They have strange yellow swollen heads and sit with their abdomens curled up under themselves. They are parasites of bumble bees.

Female Azure Blue butterfly Polyommatus bellargus (Fr. Azuré bleu-célèste) ovipositing on Horseshoe Vetch Hippocrepis comosa. 

They are a species of hot dry calcareous grasslands, quite dependent on sheep grazing to keep the habitat suitable for them. Where they occur they are usually abundant, but because of destruction or degradation of their favoured habitat their population is declining.

Rusty Tussock moth Orgyia antiqua (Fr. Etoilée) caterpillar on Downy Oak Quercus pubescens. 

This is a species that will eat a wide variety of plants, but for reasons that are not understood it has become rare. The caterpillar is amongst the most distinctive of any Lepidopteran. Be careful not to touch them as those hairs are urticating and can cause skin irritations on people who are sensitive.

Orchard Ermine moth Yponomeuta padella caterpillars and cocoons inside the web communal nest on Blackthorn Prunus spinosa. These poor Blackthorns have been munched twice this season. Earlier in the year it was Small Eggar Eriogaster lanestris caterpillars all over them. But they will recover. 

Faking Sudden Death

 

 European Peacock butterfly Inachis io (Fr. Paon du jour).

Male insects are remarkably persistent. They have to be if they want to reproduce and mate with a passing female. It is not the males who decide if mating will take place, it is the females. One of the techniques that female butterflies and dragonflies of some species will use if they don't want to mate is to drop out of the air or off their perch as if they have suddenly died when approached too persistently by a male. The bemused male will hover above for a while, but the female is capable of maintaining the charade for quite some time, so eventually the male pushes off. The female makes a 'miraculous' recovery and flies off in the opposite direction. What she's done is not without its own risk though. She could find herself predated or injured whilst on the ground. But mostly it's an effective way to get rid of a sex pest. Twenty years ago a study of butterflies playing possum showed that in 27 out of 31 instances the female succeeded in avoiding unwanted male attention in this way.

 

 Female Brimstone butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni (Fr. Citron).

If you are in the Touraine Loire Valley, watch out for the behaviour in butterflies such as the Brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni (Fr. Citron), European Peacock Inachis io (Fr. Paon du jour), Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria (Fr. Tircis), or Wall Brown Lasiommata megera (Fr. Mégère). 

 

 Wall Brown butterflies Lasiommata megera (Fr. male Satyre, female Mégère) engaged in courtship behaviour. The female, on the right, has dropped her wings. She's not playing dead in this instance, but offering an invitation to the male.

Female Speckled Wood butterfly Pararge aegeris (Fr. Tircis).

Wild Strawberry Season is Upon Us

There are several wild strawberry species, but only one is worth eating, so it is worth learning how to identify them. They are considered one of the greatest treats you can wild forage, and archaelogical evidence suggests we have been eating them for thousands of years.

 

Barren Strawberry.

Around here there are three species that are frequently confused. They are Barren Strawberry Potentilla sterilis (Fr. Potentille faux fraisier), Mock Strawberry Potentilla indica (Fr. Fraisier d'Inde) and Wild Strawberry Fragaria vesca (Fr. Fraisier des bois).

 

Barren Strawberry.

One has leaves that look just like a wild strawberry plant, and white flowers that greatly resemble the true wild strawberry. Many people will delightedly leave these growing in their garden when they turn up, but then be disappointed because they never have any fruit. That's because they are Barren Strawberries and if you know what to look for there are ways of telling them apart by looking carefully at the tip of the leaves.

 

Mock Strawberry.

Then there is another one, which does have alluring looking red fruit, but when you eat one they taste of nothing. Luckily they aren't toxic, so you won't do yourself any harm if you eat them, but they are disappointing. These are the Mock Strawberries. They are not native, but introduced from Asia and have naturalised.

 

Mock Strawberry.

All these species grow in the same season, and in the same habitats. It is not uncommon to encounter a mixture of species growing intermingled.

 

Wild Strawberries.

 

So here are my top tips for telling them apart:

Wild Strawberries

1. White flowers with rounded petals which overlap.
2. Drooping or hanging conical fruit.
3. Strong sweet floral strawberry flavour.*

Mock Strawberries

1. Yellow flowers with a ruff of green bracts that sits just below the pointed calyxes and extend beyond the flowers.
2. Globular fruit on erect stems.
3. Insipid taste.

Barren Strawberries

1. White flowers with knotched petals that do not overlap.
2. No fruit.
3. Leaves have a central tooth at the tip which is shorter than the ones either side.
   

 

Wild Strawberry.

*I know most people who know Wild Strawberries rave about them and are thrilled to find them, but personally I find them a bit too soapy tasting. 

You should be aware that low growing wild fruit *might* be contaminated with tapeworm eggs (Echinococcus sp) due to the presence of wild and feral canids (foxes, stray dogs, wolves) in the environment. French people of a certain age may give you dire warnings of what will happen if you forage for fruit below knee height. In some families the parasite you are avoiding is liver fluke (Fr. douve de foie), which is transferred in wet environments from sheep. I would have thought all this applies equally to mushrooms, but I've never heard it mentioned in that context... And in the old days, the hideous disease you would be keen to avoid was rabies...

Cornflowers

The Cornflower Cyanus segetum (syn Centaurea cyanus) is named such because it is found wild in cereal crops. In French it is called le Bleuet. Because of centuries of international grain trading the plant, which is native to Europe, can be found in North America and Australia, its seeds having been carried there in grain cargoes. As an arable weed though, since the mid-20th century it has become much rarer and more localised as a wild flower.

The flowers, which are usually deep blue, can also sometimes be white or pink. The leaves are a bit downy and grey-green. Right now in the Touraine Loire Valley if you know where to look for them the flowers are at their peak, and they will be visible until perhaps July. The Creuse valley, with its sandy alluvial soil and open flat farmland suits them perfectly. The plants are resistant to the current generation of herbicides, and difficult to control mechanically (rather the opposite -- they thrive on the disturbance! and their roots are strong) But earlier herbicides really dealt the population and distribution of this species a blow and modern seed cleaning practices destroyed significant numbers of harvested seed thus preventing them re-entering the natural seed bank. The overuse of nitrogen fertilisers has also caused a decline in cornflower population. Thus in some places you are now more likely to encounter them on roadsides rather than in crops, or they may have been eradicated altogether. In time they could still recover though, because the seeds may well be still viable in the soil, and modern crop rotations favour it. In France, although there is concern about the species and some projects to protect it, it is not considered likely that it will go extinct. In the Touraine the species can be abundant, but to the north, west and south-west the picture is not so good.

The name 'bleuet' to signify this flower first appeared in written French in 1380. Today there seems to be confusion between cornflowers and chicory Chicorium intybus, an abundant blue wild flower found on waste ground throughout France. But chicory has much paler flowers and is a perennial, whereas cornflowers are annuals.

Because of their colour the flowers have been much prized for making garlands, either with the actual flowers, or depicting them in ceramic glazes. They seem to be associated with a remarkable number of political movements, some of them rather nasty, some of them absolutely admirable. Here in France they are best known as the symbol of remembrance for veterans, in the same way that poppies are used in Britain and parts of the Commonwealth. Up until the mid-20th century French mothers would receive red, white and blue bouquets of poppies, daisies and cornflowers on Mothers Day (which is this coming Sunday in France). 

The pigment in cornflowers is called protocyanin. It's a type of anthocyanin (a pigment that gives blue, red or purple colours to many plants). Protocyanin expresses as blue in cornflowers but red in roses, for example. The pigment is extracted commercially to colour food products such as yoghurt.

Studies have shown that cornflowers can be useful in taking up lead from contaminated soils, particularly if used in combination with certain fungi or bacteria.

The flowers are edible, although they don't add much in the way of flavour, just the novelty of pretty blue petals scattered on your cheese or ice cream. Traditionally they have been used to make a decoction used as eye drops to treat conjunctivitis, and the science seems to indicate this would indeed have helped.

Cornflowers produce a lot of very sweet nectar so they are very attractive to pollenating bees and flies. The fine seeds they produce are popular with European Gold Finches. They are attractive and easy to grow in your garden, quite dry hardy, and so they are one of the plants I recommend if you are wanting to garden in a wildlife friendly way. Studies have shown that they make an excellent companion plant for brassicas in the garden, because they produce scents attractive to cabbage moth. So plant them amongst your cabbages to lure away cabbage moth. The caterpillars will then be parasitised in greater numbers, and many of the eggs eaten by beetles. Sow the seeds in late spring or early autumn. Deadhead them or pick them for taking indoors to encourage further flowering.

All photos taken by me earlier this week near Chambon in the Creuse Valley.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug

 Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Halyomorpha halys (Fr. Punaise diabolique) is a shield bug that has arrived in Europe from its native Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China. It's an increasingly serious pest of fruit crops. I suspect it is the reason my rhubarb is often insect damaged. Like all bugs they feed by jabbing their hypodermic like proboscis into their food and sucking. As you can imagine this ruins commercial fruit and offers a potential vector for plant disease.

A Brown Marmorated Stink Bug which blundered into Simon at the doctor's surgery a few days ago.

The bugs are larger than the various native shield bugs, and come in a mottled brown pattern. It can be distinguished from lookalike native species by the two bands of white on each antennae and the pale triangles around the abdomen. Similar looking bugs with three bands of white or yellow bands on their antennae or pale squares around the abdomen are native species and nothing to worry about.

They come to the attention of most people when they attempt to overwinter inside houses. Now that they are in France they've dispersed quite quickly. The adults can fly, and all stages of their life cycle are often unwittingly transported by humans when merchandise is distributed.

A Brown Marmorated Stink Bug found in our house in January.

The French National Agronomy Institute (INRAE) was on the case within a couple of years of their arrival and has identified several species of tiny parasitic wasps which will attack these bugs. The INRAE is working with two Asian species of wasp which parasitise the stink bugs' eggs and act as a biological control.

Members of the public who encounter a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug are encouraged to report it on the INRAE database https://ephytia.inrae.fr/fr/C/20539/Agiir-Signaler-une-punaise-diabolique

A Brown Marmorated Stink Bug found in our house in January.

The first sighting in France was in 2012, but initially observers did not realise what they were looking at and misidentified them as a harmless native lookalike, the Mottled Stink Bug Rhaphigaster nebulosa. They finally arrived in Indre et Loire in 2020 and are now established in the majority of French départements (counties).