The Orchadian is the official journal of the Australasian Native Orchid Society.

The Orcadian, on the other hand, is the weekly Thursday newspaper of Orkney (the Orcadians prefer that term to "the Orkney islands"). Orkney, with its windswept, wet, Pictish/Norse, hard, stony greenygreyness has only a dozen or so "temperate" ground orchids.

My wife was keen to get a feel for her Orcadian ancestry (similarly hard, stony, grey etc people), so after getting over our jetlag in the Highlands, we took the Scrabster-Stromness ferry on 1 June, my hopes high that spring had by now brought the brilliance of its floral rebirth to brighten the drab landscape.

Alas, spring came later. None of Orkney's orchids were expected until August. Whereas we had
seen the odd Dactylorhiza in the Scottish highlands, we found none on Mainland, the largest of
the Orkney islands.

L'Orchis Averne is the bulletin of the Auvergne group of la Société Française d'Orchidophilie.
Its editor is Jean Koenig, a cereal scientist at the university in Clermont-Ferrand; he is also co-author of the Société's report of mapping the orchids of Puy-de-Dôme, a department of Auvergne.

Mid-June thus found us in the headwaters of the Loire river, near the southwestern edge of the Massif Central, that great highland in the middle of France, staying in a delightful farmhouse in the French version of Otago's Silverpeaks, the Haute Loire with its old volcanic cones. These are acid soils, and we expected none of the limestone-loving orchids of the English downs. Of the wines, our landlord told us, "If you are offered local wine, I have two words of advice: resist it". We did.

We met Jean in a village called Sainte Georges d'Aurac and proceeded (after a wonderful French
lunch with his orchid colleagues) to Mt Mezenc, with its alpine herbfields and peaty old lakebeds.
I was struck again by the sheer beauty of the colour and number of European wildflowers.

Eighteen orchids are nationally protected in France, and Traunsteinera globosa is one that grows here. There were Dactylorhiza maculata, D. majalis, and D. sambucina (cream and reddish flowered forms growing together). Also (aptly) the frog orchid Coeloglossum viride, and Nigritella (see also this journals back cover).