WILLIAMSON'S WEEKLY NATURE NOTES
HERE are two weird plants I photographed this year for your interest. Some call broomrape "gingerbread men". They suddenly appear in the hedgerow or on the grass verge of a road in the summer and then may never be seen again.
In the Lavant village area of West Sussex, I have known this plant for the past 40 years or more but never in the same place: often a mile away among the farm fields.
You may have seen in the woods another plant which looks very much like it: the birds' nest orchid. Both are brown, and they have no chlorophyll of their own to make sugar from sunlight so they steal it from others.
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Hide AdThe broomrape steals sap from the roots of various hosts. This one in my photo I think was sucking sap from knapweed plants that were still in the rosette stage of life so you cannot see them here.
Other gingerbread men steal from clover, gorse and broom. They look like withered orchids.
For full feature see West Sussex Gazette September 5