Lesser Butterfly Orchid Platanthera bifolia (L.) – Plant of the Year 2008 Lesser Butterfly Orchid is chosen by the Botanist Society of Latvia as the Plant of the Year to remind us how fragile and endangered is this beauty, some may say - queen of the plants in Latvia, and to encourage us to save and to preserve it. Therefore its natural setting – moist meadows – must be mowed down but not drained, forested, ploughed up or covered with the buildings. Lesser Butterfly Orchid is just one of 32 wild orchid species in Latvia. Still it is often found in moist meadows and forests, though its distribution is noticeably reduced by former Soviet agriculture with its chemicalization, land amelioration and overgrowing of the meadows. Wild orchids are one of the most mysterious plants, often mentioned in legends and stories. Their racemes of white, airily and fragrant flowers are dizzying us in mild nights of June, enticing like sirens with their charm and aroma. Prolonged proboscis of a nightfly is just perfectly created to reach the depths of orchid flower with its hidden drop of nectar. It entices nightfly to feast at next and next flower again, taking with the pollens and facilitating pollinating and propagation. If you pick the orchid, it is losing its nice smell and fade soon, therefore let it smell and bloom in nature! There are two species of wild orchids in Latvia – Lesser Butterfly Orchid Platanthera bifolia (L.) and Greater Butterfly Orchid Platanthera chlorantha (Custer). Both plants really match their names, because their flowers look like butterfly. Valda Baroniňa | 
