Birds Nest orchid

[Newhythebirder]

This is an interesting plant. I took this yesterday at Stockbury Kent Wildlife Trust reserve not far from where I live. There were 5 of them under a Yew tree.




Reading up on it the Bird's-nest Orchid doesn't have green leaves to collect its energy from sunlight. Instead it lives entirely below ground beneath often under Beech trees (there were Beech and Yew where I saw it) and is 'saprophytic', which means it gets all its energy from dead vegetation. In fact the plant lives in has a symbiotic relationship with a fungus which can digest the vegetation and passes some of the nutrients to the Orchid, in return the Orchid manufactures certain complex chemicals for its partner. Interesting huh?

[IanS]

Yep they are amazing plants. A friend of mine recently saw about 20 of them in North Norfolk in once place. Unfortunately I wasn't with him at the time! I've only ever seen this once when it was just peaking out of the leaf litter.

[AlanS]

Nice photograph.

There seems to be a shift of opinion on the exact role of these "saprophytic" orchids. Most orchids do form a mutually beneficial partnership with fungi (I am avoiding the word "symbiosis" as it means different things to different people), but they are photosynthetic orchids that can supply sugars.

But the question is whether non-photosynthetic orchids like the Bird's-nest Orchid supply anything at all!

It might be more correct to say the orchids are parasitic on the fungi.

Indeed, even Honey Fungus has been reported as a 'partner' (I forget which orchid) and it seems likely that the Honey Fungus is 'tricked' by the orchid, the orchid being parasitic on the parasite.

One way and another, orchids can be very sneaky.

Alan

[richardkm]

Toothwort Lathraea squamaria is another plant that has no chlorophyll and has a mycorrhizal association allowing it to obtain nutrients, this time from (usually) hazel.


A team from the Open University carried out an experiment concerning Yellow Bird's-nest Monotropa hypopitys.



They injected a radio active glucose solution into conifer trees and followed the path through a boletus fungus and finally into the Yellow Bird's-nest.