Finding Nigritella nigra; one of the rarest species of orchids in Europe

The Nigritella nigra is one of the rarest species of orchids we have in Norway, and it is in fact considered really rare in all over Europe. If you don’t really know much about orchids except for the ones you keep in your house, this might not really look like what you expect orchids to look like, but the truth is that the Orchidaceae family is extremely large, with over 28,000 different species. There are many different morphological features in this family, making it a really cool family to study.

Anyway, I want to talk a little bit about Nigritella nigra, sometimes also known as Gymnadenia nigra. This species is found in parts of Scandinavia, mainly Norway and Sweden, but is also found in parts of Southern Europe, in mountain ranges such as the Alps. They tend to live somewhat high up in the mountains, but below the tree limit.

I was fortunate enough to find a few of them in the Swiss Nation Park last year, which is ironic, seeing as I would have expected to find this species in my travels here in Norway instead of when I’m so far away. It was really cool to just hike in the National Park and suddenly find this extremely rare plant just on the side of the path.

Here is one of the plants I found in the Swiss Nation Park. Sorry for the blurriness, I only brought my mobile camera because I did not expect to need anything better for this trip. You can see a few more individuals in the top-left corner.

The legal status in Norway

I want to share a few lines about the protection of this flower in Norway, because it is pretty strict. We consider it to be a “priority species” that must be saved from extinction, and it even has its own law that prohibit it from being collected. You can actually get fined if you collect it, or otherwise cause damage to the plant, including fertilizing it or covering it with mud or something. Luckily I could not find any cases where this law has actually been used, so I cannot know for sure what type of fine (or if one might even get jailed) until someone breaks the law and a trial is completed. However, like most other laws its mainly used to prevent people from doing it, and not looking to punish anyone who might pick it without knowing that it is illegal. All I can say is that "Naturmangfoldloven", which is the Nature Protection Law in Norway can include jail up to one year, but I doubt that will ever happen in cases where people pick a few flowers without intent to commit a crime.

The fact that it is strictly protected also makes it difficult to find it. It is generally expected not to share the location of the plant to non-botanists, so you kind of need to know the right people if you want to look for it. Most species in Norway have their range well known to anyone interested, but these protected species are hidden from the general public. This is of course a good strategy when we are trying to protect them, but I feel bad for hobby botanists who won’t be able to get information about where to locate it.

N. nigra is considered Critically Endangered by the National Red List, mostly due to its habitat being destroyed. It generally only thrives in places that have been grazed by farm animals, and in the last 50 years people have moved away from having smaller farms where their pigs and sheep can graze on the mountainside to instead having large farms where the animals are fed. This flower shares a similar fate with a lot of other orchid species who also had their habitat destroyed by farming shifting from family-driven small scale to industrial farming complexes.

About the author

Hi, I’m @valth! I live in Norway with my girlfriend, our newborn son, and our two dogs, one of which is seen wearing a bow tie in the profile picture!

I am very passionate about nature and biology, and have been studying ecology for a few years now. My passions are mostly within conservation biology, mycology (the studies of mushrooms), animal behavior and general microbiology. I really enjoy both the theoretical aspect, as well as the more practical aspect of biology, and I spend about as much time in front of biology textbooks as I do spend on finding and identifying plant, mushroom and animal species in the forests.

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