Thread by @dunnjons

Today, standing on the cusp of #Halloween, feels like a good day for ghost stories. My first has a happy ending... this summer, after decades of fruitlessly searching for Ghost Orchids in Britain, I finally found one - in the French Pyrenees. (1/#) 👻

This being a Ghost Orchid story, of course it wasn't easy. These flowers lurk in dark, eldritch places. Spooky places, even. And, in the case of the flower I found, in woodlands that bordered on the inaccessible. Some slopes were just too steep to safely access. (2/#)

Still, I'd a feeling I was on the right trail. The woodland floor was thick with decaying matter - deep leaf litter, and fallen wood, supporting a huge range of fungi, lichen and slime moulds. I spent hours scrambling, often on all fours, up and down the steep mountainsides.(3/#)

When the moment came, it felt momentous. An apparition, a figment of my imagination hitherto, was suddenly before me. I was lucky this one was flowering above the leaf litter - apparently some don't. That's not to say it's easy to see... (4/#)

But there it was - my first Ghost Orchid. A big moment for a European orchid hunter. I've seen some marvellous, localised orchids all around Europe, from Iceland to the island of Madeira, from Estonia to the eastern Mediterranean, but this was special. A ghost laid to rest. (5/#)

On a lighter, less ghostly note, I'm proud to lead orchid-hunting tours in Europe for @Greenwings. There are several lined up for 2022, including an orchid photography tour in Rhodes in March. No Ghost Orchids - but plenty of beauties. (6/6) greenwings.co/our-holidays/p…