Rex Graham nature reserve facts for kids
| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
 |
|
| Area of Search | Suffolk |
|---|---|
| Interest | Biological |
| Area | 2.8 hectares |
| Notification | 1984 |
| Location map | Magic Map |
The Rex Graham Reserve is a special natural area in Suffolk, England. It covers about 2.8 hectares, which is like 7 football fields! This reserve is located east of Mildenhall. It's known for its amazing plants and is protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). It's also part of a larger protected area called the Breckland Special Protection Area.
Contents
What Makes This Place Special?
This reserve used to be a chalk pit, which is a place where chalk was dug out of the ground. Now, it's surrounded by trees and is super important because it's home to a very rare flower called the Military orchid. In fact, more than 95% of all Military Orchids in the United Kingdom grow right here!
Other Cool Plants
Besides the Military Orchid, you can find other interesting plants at Rex Graham Reserve. These include:
- Mezereon
- Twayblade
- Pyramidal orchid
- Ploughman's spikenard (which is a type of Inula)
- Southern adderstongue
The Story of the Military Orchid
The Military Orchid was first found at Rex Graham Reserve in 1955. Before that, no one knew it grew in East Anglia. It was only known in Southeast England.
How the Orchids Grew and Shrank
When they first found the orchids, there were at least 500 plants. By 1958, the number grew to over 2,800 plants! Many of them were flowering, making the reserve very colorful. This large number stayed steady through the 1960s.
But by 1971, the number of orchids dropped a lot, to only 252 plants. This happened because the area became too overgrown with bushes and small trees, a process called scrubbing over. A protective fence that was put up also made it harder for the plants to get enough sunlight.
Helping the Orchids Recover
To help the orchids, people cleared away some of the bushes and cut down a few trees. This allowed the sunlight to reach the orchids again. The population started to grow back! In 1990, there were 1,115 plants. By 2000, there were so many that experts said it was "too many to count," with 748 plants flowering!
Orchid Family Tree
Scientists have studied the genes of the Military Orchids at Rex Graham Reserve. They found that these orchids are different from those at the other two places in England where they grow. This means the orchids at Rex Graham probably came from Europe on their own, rather than spreading from other parts of England.
Images for kids
-
Military Orchid
