Contrary

A gentle morning amble in Wychwood forest, 25km northwest of Oxford. Ancient royal hunting forest over 1000 years old; 500 hectares of 'Site of Special Scientific Interest', half of it National Nature Reserve; established by Ethelred II, documented in Domesday; these days, benefiting from the care of its own 'Forest Trust'. So, all the benefits of stability and permanence: the build up of deep, well structured soils; a balanced ecosystem with diverse species, some of which take a long time to establish and spread; fungal mycelia penetrating the soils and the woodland floor, building up the 'wood-wide web', distributing nutrients, promoting fertility and fecundity; the establishment of long-lasting local micro-climates to encourage unusual species. And so on...

I think probably the whole truth is a bit more complicated. The social and political revolutions that have taken place over the centuries have taken their toll. The current forest is but a fraction of the original royal domain, and within it only a few fragments are truly ancient. There have been periods of incursion, over-grazing and excessive exploitation, followed by re-plantings or exclusions. In the 18th century, the navy came calling for warship-worthy oaks, but found relatively few. Ownership and management by private estates may have been more or less benign, but was certainly un-monitored

Orchids are notoriously fussy about the conditions in which they will thrive, relying on particular combinations of species-specific environmental factors and sometimes the presence of other species. Long-term stability suits them well. These are common spotted orchid in the foreground and the pink blobs beyond the point of focus are pyramid orchid; lovely to see two species in the same spot, and quite a swathe of them on this south-facing slope

But the bank on which they are growing is at a junction between forest roads - we had to stand aside for earth-moving equipment at one point. Both roads have been graded relatively recently I think, and I'd say the bank is soil cleared from the roads, the plants on it a newly re-established community. The natural world does not always read the script