A wonderful skill, and it makes your life so much fuller. Even when you don’t want it. I remember a day in the wild when my supervisor sent me out to measure some orchids (Dactylorhiza incarnata) in a population we had been studying for a few years. It was a very hot day, and I really wanted to come home ASAP. So when I saw a Dactylorhiza with two basal leaves, I didn’t measure it and moved on. Soon, there was one with two basal leaves and delicate pale yellow flowers—but still definitely an orchid. OK, I started thinking that maybe it was time for a shower. Then after a while there were two together in a way that no Dactylorhiza I’d ever seen did. I was fed up and called my supervisor who ‘almost fell out of bed’ and said it was Liparis loeselii which was thought to be extinct in the area.
A wonderful skill, and it makes your life so much fuller. Even when you don’t want it. I remember a day in the wild when my supervisor sent me out to measure some orchids (Dactylorhiza incarnata) in a population we had been studying for a few years. It was a very hot day, and I really wanted to come home ASAP. So when I saw a Dactylorhiza with two basal leaves, I didn’t measure it and moved on. Soon, there was one with two basal leaves and delicate pale yellow flowers—but still definitely an orchid. OK, I started thinking that maybe it was time for a shower. Then after a while there were two together in a way that no Dactylorhiza I’d ever seen did. I was fed up and called my supervisor who ‘almost fell out of bed’ and said it was Liparis loeselii which was thought to be extinct in the area.