Citation: F. Muell., Victorian Nat. 6:126 (1889).

Synonymy: P. hartii R. Rogers, Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust. 51:8 (1927).

Common name: Maroon leek-orchid.

Description:
Often of robust habit, to 60 cm high; leaf lamina exceeding the inflorescence.

Flowers numerous, 20-50 or more, more or less crowded, greenish to green with brown or red markings or prune-coloured; flowers subsessile, spreading to semi-erect, subtended at the base by a short very obtuse bracteole; ovary relatively large, green and turgid; dorsal sepal erect but curved at the apex, ovate, 5-8 mm long, acute, concave, glandular on the outside; lateral sepals elliptic-falcate, acuminate, free, 6-10 mm long, concave, spreading, parallel; petals spreading, elliptic-falcate, rather blunt, c. 8 mm long; labellum shortly and broadly clawed, 4-7 mm long, the basal two-thirds more or less erect, fleshy, swollen, concave, the margins wide, rounded and entire, thereafter recurved at right angles into a triangular acute tip with crenulate narrow margins, callus plate conspicuously raised, hastate, with thickened very glandular margins, extending just beyond the bend; column short and wide; anther dark-red or brown, ovate, erect, flat, not apiculate, distinctly shorter than the rostellum and lateral appendages; lateral appendages widely oblong, erect or incurved; apices truncate, notched or lacerated, with a small subulate tooth posteriorly; basal lobe rounded, small; rostellum erect, 2-fid; caudicle slender, of medium length.

Published illustration: Gray (1971) Victorian native orchids 2:90; Woolcock (1984) Australian terrestrial orchids, pl. 46C.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: SE.   Vic. Conservation status: native Flowering time: Oct. — Jan.

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

Biology: Examination of the types of P. frenchii and P. hartii shows them to be conspecific. P. frenchii is a variable species and specimens from the SL are somewhat intermediate between P. frenchii and P. diversiflorum Nicholls.

Author: Not yet available