Autumn Lady's-tresses

Tipped off by Knottman2 (another Blipfoto user) I went looking for this beautiful little orchid this afternoon. I thought the most likely habitat would be a delightful patch of National Trust land with closely grazed turf on top of limestone outcrops, a very similar site to places where I know this orchid well on Gower in South Wales. Sure enough, I started to find plants soon after I arrived and ended up seeing around 50 plants. This latest flowering of our native UK orchids is tiny, just a few centimetres high, with a neat line of small white flowers arranged in a spiral round the stem. Finding this lovely plant made my day.