Yeah, ok, I’ve been slack, I haven’t done a PotM for a couple of months, the editor hasn’t yelled at me to pull my finger out (Hi Helen!) but with spring pretty much here I figured I’d share some Orchid pics.
Orchids can be a pain in the derriere to identify to species level given that they’re constantly being split up and re-clumped and argued about by people far more obsessive than me. Getting to the genus level is pretty easy and unless I’m doing a specific survey or looking for (or suspecting) an endangered species then I’m generally happy to leave it at that.
This is a very rough guide to how I recognise them.
Mosquito Orchids (Acianthus spp)
Heart shaped basal leaf, one to many flowers on a single spike (leaf similar to the Helmet Orchids Corybas spp which has a bigger flower and often stalkless)
Finger Orchids (Caladenia spp)
Generally white to pink with 4 fingers pointing down, single grasslike upright leaf.
Blue Fingers/Blue Fairy Orchid (Cyanicula caerulea)
Similar to the above but blue flowers and the single horizontal leaf
Snake/Tiger Orchids (Cymbidium spp)
Grass or Lomandra like plant generally growing in the fork of Eucalypts, Angophora and sometimes Casuarina.
Hyacinth orchids (Dipodium spp)
Leafless, red/purple stems (non photosynthetic) very prominent purple flowers
Donkey Orchids (Diuris spp)
So named because of the flower’s resemblance to a donkey with big ears pointing up at the back, mostly yellow flowers but sometimes white or purple.
Onion Orchids (Microtis spp)
Small, grasslike orchids with very small, green flowers (generally needing a hand lens to look at the fine details.
Greenhoods (Pterostylis spp)
Another (usually) green flowering orchid, leaves generally in a basal rosette, flowers range in size from under a centimetre to a couple of centimetres.
Sun Orchids (Thelymitra spp)
Flowers open up during the day, hence the common name, this genus contains the famous Western Australian “Queen of Sheba” orchid.
This is only a brief outline of the approximately 250 species of orchid found in the Hunter Region. If you’re after more information there’s plenty to be found online or you could track down a copy of Guide to Native Orchids of NSW and ACT by Lachland Copeland and Gary N Backhouse or for a less technical treatment “Orchids of the Hunter Region” by Elizabeth Burton (one of my volunteer crew when I was working at the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project).