The news broke publicly on 13th August with a tweet:
"2024 UK - Get in there! The Ghost #Orchid (Epipogium aphyllum) is one of our rarest species, and one that doesn’t need an introduction. After 30 years of searching I’m beyond delighted to have chanced upon one".
Our very own top orchid tour leader, Richard Bate, had hit the jackpot of British botany, let alone orchid-hunting - after decades of searching woodlands across southern England, he'd finally found a Ghost Orchid. The last to be seen in Britain was back in 2009, and that one came shortly after the species had been declared officially extinct as a British species. The irony of that, back in 2009, was piquant. The Ghost wasn't dead, after all. Just lost.
But since 2009 it's melted back into the shadows. The murmurs of its demise had begun once more in the absence of any further British sightings. Every late summer and autumn, the most dedicated British orchid hunters descended on the Ghost's former known woodland haunts, searching assiduously for the rarest of Britain's orchids. Maybe they loved it too much for its own good - Ghost Orchids seem to be sensitive souls, and probably don't respond well to heavy, repeated footflow compacting the soil in which they lurk beneath a carpet of last year's fallen leaves. They're said to sometimes flower beneath the leaf litter, not deigning to emerge into what little light penetrates the dense tree canopy far overhead.
Richard's a pioneering sort, a man with a keen eye not only for a rare orchid, but also for the habitat in which one might be found. In recent years he's been searching woodlands where others haven't concentrated their efforts. And in one such woodland, at a location which will remain confidential for the sake of the orchid's protection from over-zealous admirers, he finally connected with his nemesis - a flowering Ghost Orchid.
Here at Mariposa Nature Tours we couldn't be happier. For Richard, of course, as he's a close friend and we know how elated he was to have found a Ghost Orchid. But also for British botany as a whole. We're all of us only too aware how beleagured the British countryside is, how much biodiversity has been lost in the past century or so. How at times that decline seems to be accelerating. Richard's rediscovery of the rarest of all British wildflowers, clinging on against all the odds, hitherto unseen and written off, is a reminder that all may not be totally lost just yet.
We're lucky, all of us, to have the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) championing plant life of all shapes, sizes and forms in Britain and Ireland. It's an incredible organisation, and one that here at Mariposa we're delighted to support, both financially - we make a donation to BSBI after each of our botanical holidays - and practically too - Mariposa co-founder and keen orchid-hunter Jon Dunn is the BSBI county recorder for Shetland. Both Richard and Jon are delighted to be part of BSBI's 'Team Orchid'!
Richard's entrusted the location of his Ghost Orchid find to BSBI's safe-keeping. The sighting has been officially recorded by them. We all hope this momentous discovery will help raise the profile of the Ghost Orchid and maybe spur someone else to find more in another hitherto unrecorded location - and if you find one, BSBI have a special hotline email address you can contact them upon! In the immortal words of Ray Parker, Jr, who you gonna call? ghostorchids@bsbi.org, that's who. However, we also hope the botanical find of the decade helps inspire some general interest in British and Irish botany as a whole, and in particular the many ways in which BSBI and their dedicated plant-hunting membership works to support it.
Meanwhile, if you'd like to go orchid-hunting with Richard, we can help with that! Richard and Jon are a formidable orchid-hunting team, and co-lead several of our European orchid tours together. Their orchid tours fill up quickly - the tours to Cyprus and Rhodes respectively for 2025 are both already fully booked. But if you'd like to join Richard in Cyprus in March 2026, or Richard and Jon in Rhodes in April 2026, both of those flagship tours are already open for bookings - full details of both tours are here on our website:
And if you can't wait until 2026 for your fix of European orchids, there are still some places available to explore the Orchids of Sicily in 2025 with renowned Italian naturalist and Sicilian native Andrea Corso... As they say in Sicily, amuninni!
(And as for what Richard probably said when he set eyes on that Ghost Orchid the other day? Almost certainly best not repeated!)
