Family: Orchidaceae
Acianthus exsertus
Citation:
R. Br., Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. 321 (1810).
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: Mosquito orchid, gnat orchid.
Description:
Slender, glabrous, 7-16 cm high; leaf single, sessile, ovate-cordate; generally a little above the base; green above, red below; margins entire, often sinuous; 1 or 2 marginal nerves, venation otherwise reticulate.
Flowers 3-20, on short pedicels, reddish-purple or rarely verdant-green; dorsal sepal 5-6 mm long, concave, slightly incurved, much contracted below, expanded above and terminating in a fine short point; lateral sepals almost as long, subulate, free, spreading beneath the labellum; petals lanceolate, 2-3 mm long, acutely bent backwards; labellum ovate-lanceolate with a very acute depressed point, on a short claw or contracted base; generally a deeper red than the perianth segments; spreading, c. 3 mm long; margins entire; lamina smooth except for a pair of prominent basal glands; column semiterete, enlarged at each end, upper end cup-shaped, c. 2.5 mm long, very much incurved above; anther quite blunt, erect; pollinia 2 in each cell; each mass semicircular with clavate ends like a dumb-bell, each pair connected by their middle to a separate viscid disk; stigma transverse, oval, prominent, very concave; rostellum double, represented by a tooth-like prominence at each end of the upper border of the stigma, each bearing a separate viscid disk.
Published illustration:
Fitzgerald (1875) Australian orchids, vol. 1, pt 1; Gray (1966) Victorian native orchids, 1:16; Pocock (1972) Ground orchids of Australia, pl. 2; Woolcock (1984) Australian terrestrial orchids, pl. 1B.
Distribution:
|
Forming small to large colonies in various soils in heathlands, scrub or forest, particularly in rocky areas. Common.
N.S.W.; Vic.; Tas.
|
Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: May — Aug.
|
SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
|
Biology:
No text
Author:
Not yet available
|