Cors Fochno or Borth Bog on the western edge of mid-Wales, holds a recently discovered population of Irish Lady’s Tresses Spiranthes romanzoffiana; it is a pretty orchid with small white flowers in three spiral rows. Spiranthes romanzoffiana occurs in sites with wet, acidic peaty soils, in western Britain and Ireland but also much more commonly in similar habitats across North America, which gives it an amphi-Atlantic distribution. The small population on the edge of Cors Fochno is is a remarkable outlier population of a rare species and this is shown clearly on the BSBI distribution map; its arrival in West Wales in 2019 and more generally on the Atlantic seaboard has been the cause of much speculation. The photograph below is a rather poor image taken in mid-July before it was in full flower and at dusk during a search for nightjars.

The closely related, Autumn Lady’s Tresses is a relatively common but local species in southern England. In Kent, it is present in coastal grasslands such as Littlestone Golf Course as well as remnant, protected chalk grasslands such as Queendown Warren; it seems to prefer unfertilised and short-grazed or mown grasslands. In Europe, it is a widespread species with a foothold in southern Britain rather like Chalkhill Blue and Adonis Blue butterflies with which it sometimes co-occurs.