In the shady depths of beech forests, the otherworldly bird’s-nest (named after its scruffy, nest-like rhizomes) lives underground without sunlight, only sending its spikes of bone-coloured flowers into the daylight. Our two species of butterfly orchid — the increasingly rare lesser butterfly and commoner greater butterfly — have flowers like winged serpents sculpted by Dalí out of lemon meringue. They are pollinated by night-flying moths attracted to their lily-like scent and the ethereal glow they produce by moon and starlight. In contrast, the lizard orchid has been said to smell of goat and can have yard-high banners smothered in twisted petals like lizards’ tails. Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’ Frog, bird’s-nest, bee, fly, monkey, late spider, lizard — if you think these are ingredients for a potent Hallowe’en brew, think again: welcome to Britain’s fascinating array of wild orchids. Orchids are the most diverse, most highly evolved flowering plants on the planet. With more than 30,000 species (compared with 6,399 mammalian ones), the vast majority are native to tropical zones. It was these that wealthy Victorians feverishly imported at great cost from the jungles of Asia and the Americas. Ever since, tropical orchids have overshadowed Britain’s native flowers, to the extent that many people today simply do not realise that we play host to more than 50 species.

The Orchid Outlaw | Ben Jacob | 9781399802260 | NetGalley The Orchid Outlaw | Ben Jacob | 9781399802260 | NetGalley

An area arguably unmatched for British flora, it boasts early purple, chalk fragrant, common twayblade, common spotted, northern marsh and early marsh, lesser and greater butterfly, and the scarce dark-red helleborine. Feoch Meadows, Ayrshire These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience – the local community. By now you are probably working out that Ben Jacobs is covering a lot of ground in this book. Law, science, and simple botany, plus habitat niceties, policy of local government officers and other groundkeepers… and did I say simple botany? Orchids are anything but simple. They are the most amazing, most complicated flowering plants you can imagine, and it turns out they even have their own mycorrhizal fungi they like to cohabit with ( like trees). In fact, no one had rescued them and no one was languishing in prison for their destruction. I took a closer look at the Act and discovered it excuses any “lawful operation or other activity” from razing tracts of rare habitat along with all that lives there. This is partly why, for decades, this Act has not really worked. This isn’t just about orchids – many populations of protected species and habitats have steadily declined since 1981. You might think this would indicate that changes in the law or how it is applied are long overdue.When summer segues into autumn, the last of Britain’s wild orchids, autumn lady’s-tresses, raises its little spires hung with pale, honey-scented bells and offers its nectar to incongruously large bumblebee pollinators. Charles Darwin studied the way bumblebees pollinated these flowers and how this orchid has a very clever mechanism for ensuring cross-pollination. By doing so, these native flowers proved his theory of coevolution: the flowers would not look or operate that way without the presence of bumblebees. Similarly, without their pollinators, orchids such as the early spider would not have evolved to look, feel and smell as they do. Get political: write to your MP, make your views heard on social media, object to planning proposals on rare Cotswold grassland. Most of all, we can spread the word and encourage friends, family, and colleagues to do what needs to be done. As I explore in my book, The Orchid Outlaw, in this respect our native orchids matter: they are not only biodiversity indicators, they tell a story about the planet, our place in it, and how to save it. The story they reveal concerns us all. Ghost orchids (Epipogium aphyllum) have not been seen in the wild in Britain for 13 years. Credit: Alamy

The Orchid Outlaw by Ben Jacob | Hachette UK The Orchid Outlaw by Ben Jacob | Hachette UK

The Law Commission reached the same conclusion in 2015 when it suggested an overhaul of our wildlife laws. The Home Secretary turned down the idea. What can you do when the government doesn’t (surprise, surprise) listen? You can sit at home grumbling. Or you can quietly step in to do what the law should. The irony is that while the Act excuses “lawful” operations from destroying threatened species, it doesn’t extend that kind of grace to an unauthorised individual digging up a plant.Obsessed by orchids since childhood, Ben spent years travelling to far-flung jungles to see them in the wild. Then a chance encounter set him off on a journey of discovery into the wonderful, but often forgotten, world of Britain's fifty-one native species. These include the Bee which looks (and smells) so much like one that even bees are fooled, the Ghost which exists without sunlight, and Autumn Lady's Tresses which gave Darwin the proof he needed for his theory of evolution. So, what can we do to preserve these areas and the rare flora and fauna which live there? Firstly, never underestimate the power of you. Despite politicians’ carefully scripted sound bites, for decades legislation and policy in this country has failed to adequately protect our nature. That is a story not exclusive to orchids and the Cotswolds: the native inhabitants of these islands are dwindling at an unsustainable rate. This should concern all of us, for biodiversity is part of the fabric which allows this planet, our economies, societies, and future generations, to function. Without policy-makers turning this into the priority it deserves to be, saving our island’s nature and our children’s future is down to us.

The Orchid Outlaw - Wainwright Prize The Orchid Outlaw - Wainwright Prize

Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’ The spectacular lady orchid (Orchis purpurea), likened to ‘little women in burgundy skirts and bonnets’. Credit: Marianne MajerusThe endangered red helleborine (Cephalanthera rubra), one of Britain’s rarest plants. Credit: Getty