Citation: R. Br., Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. 318 (1810).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Austral leek-orchid.

Description:
Often slender, 25-75 cm high; leaf-lamina usually shorter than the spike.

Flowers spreading, sessile, on a very slender terete elongated ovary c. 10 mm long, appressed to the stem, in a rather loose spike, sweet-scented, with prevailing tints of white, brown, and green; perianth-segments very acute; sepals yellowish-green and nearly equal in length; the dorsal sepal ovate-lanceolate, c. 8 mm long, erect or recurved, concave: the lateral sepals broadly lanceolate, c. 8 mm long, sometimes free at the extreme base, united beyond this almost to the tips, suberect, parallel; petals erect, lanceolate, acute or cuspidate, yellowish-green with a wide reddish-brown stripe down the centre, narrower and rather shorter than the lateral sepals; labellum sessile, oblong-obovate, c. 8 x c. 4 mm, conspicuously white, with a bulging erect base; acutely reflexed about the middle; the free end voluminous, much crisped, with undulate margins; callose part ending abruptly in 2 much elevated knuckles at the bend; anther erect, with a short point, 2-celled, not as high as the rostellum; column more or less horizontal, lateral appendages lanceolate-falcate, adnate in front to the pedicel of the stigmatic-plate, the basal lobes thickened and sinuous, about equal in height to the rostellum; viscid disk large, ovate, situated in a triangular depression on the front of the apex of the rostellum; stigma large, prominent, somewhat pentagonal; caudicle rather long; pollinia 2, 2-lobed.

Published illustration: Gray (1971) Victorian native orchids, p. 76; Woolcock (1984) Australian terrestrial orchids, pl. 44A.

Distribution:  Forms small colonies in boggy soils or swamps in forests or coastal heathland. S.Aust.: SL, KI, SE.   Qld; N.S.W.; Vic.; Tas. Conservation status: native Flowering time: Nov. — Dec.

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

Biology: Flowering more freely after fires.

Author: Not yet available