IN THE NEWS, 9th January, 2009

Ireland's Wild Orchids – a field guide

Brendan Sayers (Foreman at the National Botanic Gardens) and the award-winning botanical artist Susan Sex, have recently completed their latest Irish Orchid book, a field guide to Ireland's Wild Orchids (cover at right).

This richly illustrated book gives detailed keys and descriptions, with many original observations on distribution, ecology and biology. In addition there are many illustrations on the morphology of orchids, and a new visual key to both the genera and species.

Below are sample pages showing the key to Gymnadenia species, and the entry for Spiranthes romanzoffiana.

The book is an octavo volume (21 x 13 cm) and comes in 2 versions, a hard-back library edition (€ 175) and a waterproof field edition with its own magnifier and ruler (€ 35), and these can be ordered from:-

Ireland's Wild Orchids
The Retreat
St Anne's Square
Portmarnock
Co. Dublin

You can read more about the book and download an order form from www.orchidireland.ie.