“Nature loves to hide”, or so proclaimed the riddling ancient philosopher Heraclitus. These past few weeks, I’ve been on the lookout for the last of the season’s orchids – Spiranthes spiralis, or autumn lady’s tresses – and I’m starting to see what he meant.
Today I’m crouched near the top of Wolstonbury Hill, eyes peeled. The place is certainly teeming: scabious and hawkbit dance with the dried-out grasses; bees hum and linnets chatter on a hawthorn. The orchids that I’m seeking grow from long-lived tubers, and I saw a handful in this precise location last summer, so I know they’re here. So far, though, no sign.
I’m not necessarily too early: two weeks ago, on Newtimber Hill, just along the escarpment, I found several, and there’s a valley farther west where they’re blooming in conspicuous thousands.
Still, just looking for these orchids is a perspective-shifting pleasure. They are plants of the grassland understorey, a world of snails, crickets, and creeping species such as eyebright and thyme. To spot them, I find it’s best to scan haphazardly, hoping for a small disturbance of grey-green stem. Close up, each plant is tipped with a braided spiral of tiny white flowers. Glittery and translucent, their petals form a narrow, almond-scented tunnel for visiting pollinators, its outer rim frilled like a lace bonnet.
For today, I’m happy to call it quits. Being made to wait is a welcome reminder of the myriad factors that make a plant community. There are the constants – mild climate, chalk bedrock, centuries of grazing – all of which have shaped the characteristic, species-rich grasslands of the South Downs. Then, perhaps of most interest, there are variations at every scale. Each slope has differences of aspect, gradient and land-use history, every anthill a sunny and a shady side. These downs have lost over 90% of mature chalk grassland since the second world war, yet such numbers can’t tell the full story. Every grassland is different, a fractal mosaic of microhabitats.
Over the years, I’ve counted 13 different orchid species on this hill, its thin, unimproved soils a sanctuary for these distinctive plants. For one, the man orchid, this is the only West Sussex site. To visit them, each in turn, is a small ritual of record and recognition. But nature makes the calendar.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
