Citation: Benth., Fl. Aust. 6:315 (1873).

Synonymy: Calochilus imberbis

Common name: Common beard-orchid, purplish beard-orchid, brown beards, copper beard-orchid.

Description:
Plant seldom exceeding 45 cm in height; leaf shorter than the raceme, linear-lanceolate, acute, channelled, keeled, inclined to be fleshy

Flowers usually 2-9, green and purple; dorsal sepal erect, c. 12 mm long, green, cucullate, broadly ovate, acute; lateral sepals as long as the dorsal sepal, narrower, divergent, spreading below or at the sides of the labellum; petals about half as long as the sepals, ovate-falcate, erect, yellowish-green, with a dark vertical stripe; labellum sessile, c. 20 mm long, the lamina directed forward, broadly triangular, covered with crowded purple callus-like glands at the extreme base and ending in a short glabrous ribbon, otherwise densely bearded with long purple glistening glandular hairs; column short and widely winged, a purple gland at each lower angle, these angles connected by a transverse raised purple (often dotted) ridge; anther almost as long as the column, nearly horizontal, bluntly rostrate; stigma transversely oblong; rostellum very long and narrow, unconnected with the pollinia; pollinia 2, each deeply 2-lobed, crescentic, club-shaped.

Published illustration: Fitzgerald (1878) Australian orchids vol. 1, pt 4; Cady & Rotherham (1970) Australian native orchids, pl. 59; Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 197; Hoffman & Brown (1984) Orchids of south-west Australia, p. 208.

Distribution:  Occurs singly or in small groups in open forest or around swamp margins. S.Aust.: MU, SL, KI, SE.   In all States except the N.T. Conservation status: native Flowering time: Oct. — Nov.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: C. imberbis with unadorned labellum, is regarded by some authors as a peloric form (see discussion under C. imberbis).

Author: Not yet available