We then drove to the village of Laurac, which is on my side of the plain and only 15 mins from home. Laurac was an important village in medieval times and was the capital of the Lauragais region (much of the plain south of Toulouse), but it was also a Cathar village, subjected to the horrors of Simon de Montfort and the crusade against them, which I explained in my last but one post.
We didn't have time to look around the village but it looks really pretty. Look at those Valerians growing out of the walls! Next time we come here to see the orchids, we will have a wander around the village.
Ian had discovered a field near the village full of Military Orchids, so we walked up a very steep hill with many orchids growing in the verges on the way up, including these Bee Orchids (Ophrys apifera).
Man Orchids (Orchis anthropophora) - the one on the right was exceptionally yellow - they can be dark pinky red through to a beigey yellow colour. There are also some Bee Orchids in the first photo for scale - Man Orchids can be very tall.
In the field full of Military Orchids (Orchis militaris). There were some Military x Lady Orchid crosses in this field too, but I am not sure if I have a photo of one as they are not that easy to tell which is which without an expert! There were various different colours as you can see in this photo.
Click on the image to enlarge it then look inside the flower of the white Military Orchid - can you see a little alien face? I think it's delightful! Both these are the same species (I think), just different colours.
Looking across the plain to the Montagne Noire.
Clockwise from top: Laurac from the Military Orchid field; Owly Sulphur Owlfly (Libelloides coccajus); Tassel Hyacinth (Leopoldia comosa), a species found in the Med region.
We then went up to the highest point in Laurac, to a hillside we visited last year which was full of orchids. At first glance, it seemed disappointing as the hundreds of Long-lipped Tongue Orchids were not in abundance like the previous year, as it seemed the top of the hill had been recently grazed. However, the hillside proved to have a lot of goodies!
Clockwise from top left: Narbonne Flax (Linum narbonense); Pheasant's Eye (Adonis annua); Fly Orchid (Ophrys insectifera); Six-spot Burnet Moth (Zygaena filipendulae).
View to Laurac top, and distant view of my village, Fanjeaux, bottom.
We discovered quite a few of these beautiful Pink Butterfly Orchids (Anacamptis papilionacea) growing on the hillside.
And some more of the gorgeous Ophrys bertolonii subsp. magniflora.
Niall and one of our group taking photos of the Pink Butterfly Orchids.
Another amazing day out and I'm still enjoying learning about the orchids and other wildflowers found in this region. Writing this blog helps me with learning about them as I look them all up once they have been identified. Whether I retain that knowledge or not is another matter!
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We are going back to May now, as I didn't have time to write about this outing before going away. This was one of the wildflower day trips with Birding Languedoc, but was predominantly about orchids, lead by a guy who took us on an orchid day last year.
We were lucky on this day as both places we went to were within half an hour of home! The first was just outside of Moussoulens, across the plain from us on the edge of the Montagne Noir. This was a large area of heathland, mostly grass and flowers with some trees around the edges of the areas where we walked. We were searching for a specific species of orchid, which we eventually found, and of course, found many other interesting plants as well.
The morning started damp, gloomy and chilly, but eventually the sun started to come out and many flowers opened up and what looked like an unpromising site at first turned out to be very special after all.
There were absolutely tons of Long-lipped Tongue Orchids everywhere.
The following are all species we call 'Rockrose", but completely different, proving how important Latin names are! Clockwise from top left: Grey-leaved Cistus (Cistus albidus), Spotted Rockrose (Tuberaria guttata), White Rockrose (Helianthemum apenninum), Yellow Rockrose (Fumana procumbens)
The White Rockrose was growing through Common Thyme (Thymus vulgaris), which is the grey bushy type we see most often on the garrigues. However in this place, there were two species of thyme - see the following photo for the other species.
Clockwise from top: Quaking Grass (Briza media), I think this is one of the Star-of-Bethlehems (Ornithogalum orthophyllum) and lastly, Creeping Thyme (Thymus serpyllum), a thyme with many common names.
This Cream-spot Tiger moth (Arctia villica) was sleeping on a leaf, waiting for the weather to warm up. They have amazing colours underneath!
A path lined with Grey-leaved Cistus, one of my favourite spring flowering plants down here.
Keith, Niall, Pog and Ian - Niall and Ian were our leaders for the day.
There was a patch in the heath with lots of this really pretty little plant. It wasn't until at home and using PlantNet that I discovered that it is actually a broomrape, which are parasitic plants! As it has green leaves, it doesn't really look like one, but it is known as hemiparasitic as whilst it photosynthesises, it also takes nutrients from the roots of other plants. It is Mediterranean Lineseed (Bellardia trixago).
This is another plant that had us confused - only to find out it is actually Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) in flower! The young leaves of this oak are not holly-like like some of the older leaves are, so none of us looking at the tree noticed any of them.
A beetle on a Verbascum flower.
There was a large patch of these grasses which I think are Stipa, possibly pennata.
The following are some of the orchids we saw in Moussoulens.
Woodcock Orchid (Ophrys scolopax).
Long-lipped Tongue Orchid (Serapias vomeracea).
Yellow Bee Orchid (Ophrys lutea).
This was the orchid that we were mainly searching for as it is much rarer than the others that were around this area. This is Ophrys bertolonii subsp. magniflora, which doesn't have an English name as far as I know. Isn't it beautiful?
There were also Man, Lizard and Early Spider Orchids, but I didn't bother taking photos of them - how blasé am I, with these species growing in my lawn!
I'll continue the rest of the day in another post.
After lunch we headed a bit west and higher up to a place Gill calls the Magic Meadow. On the way we passed areas covered in the Papillon or Butterfly Lavender (a good indicator of acid soil). Rocky verges gave way to grassy ones full of Cowslips, then swathes of Early Purple Orchids (Orchis mascula) appeared, like these below.
The last time we were here we walked several kms uphill, but this time, thankfully we drove that bit after carpooling at Pech Mégé, altitude 637m. Then it was a shortish walk to where we disappeared into some trees and emerged on the side of a limestone ridge.
This area is amazing for having a mix of Mediterranean and mountain species, at an altitude of about 700m, which is not particularly high for mountain plants.
This photo, taken by Keith, is an indicator of what it's like on a wildflower trip. Bums in air! All the photos K took of me by the way, I had my back to the camera and my hood up (that's me on the right). It was FREEZING up there and when the sun went in it was even worse. There were times when I was nearly blown off my feet.
Here we are looking in the direction of the plain , on the other side of which are the Pyrenees.
And this is the other side of the ridge that we were on.
There were occasional lovely little sheltered spots like here, just covered in Early Purples and Rush-leaved Narcissi, the same little Narcissus that we saw in the morning. In a place like this, it’s hard to not tread on a flower, so we did our best to avoid the orchids, knowing that the thyme and other low ground cover plants could mostly take our footsteps.
In a sheltered spot we found the only two Fly Orchids (Ophrys insectifera) of the day. The two flowers that were out show just how varied Ophrys species can be in terms of colour and markings.
This is a cute little mountain species, Creeping Globularia (Globularia repens).
My favourite plant of the day is this lovely little alpine, Hairy Rock Jasmine (Androsace villosa). Several websites I read said that this species is found from an altitude of 1,200m, showing how interesting it is in the Magic Meadow, as we were about 500m lower down than that.
In the top right of the picture is Mountain Kidney Vetch (Anthyllis montana) with pinky red flowers.
And in this picture is Common Kidney Vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria), although both species can be found at altitude.
There were other wildflowers worthy of photos but
by this time my knees had just about given up! I saved my last bit of
strength for anything amazing, like this Sword or Narrow-leaved Helleborine (Cephalanthera longifolia) which we saw in a shady spot on our way back.
On the way back to the cars it started snowing!!! Unbelievable! It was only light fine snow, but even so. We called it a day earlier than we normally would have because everyone was cold and fed up of the wind by now. I sat in the car and enjoyed a nice warming cup of tea from our flask.
Just after we left K decided to take his jacket off, so we pulled in and I saw these Aphyllanthes monspeliensis - they are a common plant on the garrigues in spring and on grassy hillsides around where we live. I didn't see any during the day however.
Other orchids seen during the day, and the reasons for not taking pics, were:
Early Spider Orchid (in my lawn!)
Yellow Bee Orchid (in my lawn!)
Man Orchid (in my lawn!)
Tongue Orchid (already have many photos and knees were giving way)
Dense Flowered Orchid (I have photos from the last time we were there, plus knees)
Woodcock Orchid (I missed that one)
Violet Limodore in bud (I missed that too sadly, but it was growing along the verge a bit lower down from where we parked. Not one I have seen before).
I went back through my 2021 photos, as I never posted about that trip on my blog. Here's a photo giving you an idea of what the Magic Meadow looked like a month later, in mid May. Not really a lot different, apart from a sea of yellow everywhere from a yellow Rock-rose.
This is the plant in question: a Rock-rose that I can't ID (Helianthemum sp.). PlantNet isn't much help as there are three that look similar but not quite right!
It was a very successful day in terms of wildflowers but somewhat challenging with the weather! Having seen these two spots in both April and May, I would like to come back in June to see what else might be in flower - but I would choose a nice day and hope to see lots of butterflies!
This was a wildflower outing organised by Birding Languedoc last week, one that we had done before in May 2021. We started the day above the village of Siran in the Minervois. Due to firebreaks keeping the vegetation down it has allowed the wildflowers room to flourish without competition from the nearby trees and shrubs. This is garrigue habitat, where most plants grow low to the ground in rocky free draining soil, where they cope with hot dry summers due to small tough leaves, and/or summer hibernation.
There were only seven of us on the trip: Philippa who leads the BL trips and Gill who was our plant expert for the day. Also present were a couple of guys I know who are pretty knowledgeable about plants/birds/insects, so it made for an easier day with most plants fairly readily identified.
Whilst we had some great views over the plain to the Corbieres and distant Pyrenees, it was a very windy day so we were blasted by the cold wind until we could get to some more sheltered spots!
Being here a month earlier than the last time allowed us some fabulous displays of Asphodels (I don't know species name, possibly Asphodelus cerasiferus?. Edit: Though I see from my photos that some of them are Branched Asphodels (A. ramosus)).
My favourite garrigue plant is Cistus, particularly this Grey-leaved Cistus (Cistus albidus) with its lovely crinkly pink flowers. Also in this image is Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) which was everywhere, and Curry Plant. I hadn't realised that Curry Plant can be either Helichrysum italicum or H. stoechas. I thought they were one and the same plant! I can't tell which exact species were the ones we saw, that's impossible!
One of the stars of the day were these Pyrenean Fritillaries (Fritillaria pyrenaica).
Clockwise from top left: Rush-leaved Narcissus (Narcissus assoanus), Common Storksbill (Erodium ciconium), Perennial Lettuce (Latuca perennis) and White Rock-rose (Helianthemum apenninum).
A giant Puffball fungus well past its best.
Young shoots and flower buds of Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera), the low growing oak found on garrigue habitat.
Thyme
We saw quite a lot of these Green-winged Orchids (Anacamptis morio) which were growing out in the open (photo on left), but only very few Provencal Orchids (Orchis provincialis) in more sheltered spots.
More Asphodels and Grey-leaved Cistus.
Our hardy wildflower loving group. 😀
We had our picnic in a sheltered spot nearby which was the only place where I saw butterflies, although one of our group spotted a few brave flutters hugging the ground during the day.
The afternoon's finds will be in part 2.
