The lady’s slipper is not a rare orchid. Across its range there are 100,916 occurrence records in GBIF, which puts it among the better-documented wild orchids on the planet. France holds 20,357 of them. Sweden has 18,555, Switzerland 13,915, Finland 13,838, Germany 12,119. Russia, Austria, Norway and Estonia all run into the thousands. Photo: cpu, via GBIF (CC0) Then there is the United Kingdom, with 396. That is under four tenths of one percent of the global total, for a plant that is common enough in the Alps that Austrian walkers photograph it casually in May.

Break the 41,807 GBIF records for the bee orchid down by month and the shape is almost comic in its clarity. January 640, February 965, March 854, April 2,379. Then May 12,966 and June 21,201. Then July collapses to 977, August to 58, September to 27. Photo: Bob Helson, via GBIF (CC0) May and June together account for 82% of every record ever logged. That is a flowering season drawn straight from observation data, without anyone consulting a field guide.