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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Orchidaceae
Pterostylis pusilla

Citation: R. Rogers, Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust. 42:26, t. 3 (1918).

Synonymy: Oligochaetochilus pusillus

Common name: None

Description:
A slender glabrous plant, 4-15 cm high; leaves 3-6 in a basal rosette, shortly petiolate, lamina oblong-lanceolate, 10-30 mm long, green, with raised reticulations; 2 or 3 closely sheathing bracts on the stem and 1 subtending each flower.

Flowers 1-5 in a loose raceme on slender relatively long pedicels, green with maroon tints; galea c. 10 mm long from the base to the crest, with a short recurred point and dark-green stripes; lateral sepals (lower lip) recurved or reflexed, ovate-lanceolate, subulate, fused in the proximal three-quarters, margins involute, about the same length as the galea, the sinus between lobes very narrow; labellum on a long wide claw, very irritable, lamina oblong, c. 5 mm long, fleshy, maroon or brown, concave on its upper surface, tip straight, blunt, rounded or notched; the undersurface with a deep central channel running from the base to the tip in the lower half between 2 pyriform swellings whose apices are directed forwards but do not reach the tip; lateral margins of the labellum with a few slender setae of varying length, posterior margins and tip shortly ciliate; channel on lower surface beset with stiff transverse hairs; appendage almost obsolete and represented only by a thickened posterior margin; column incurved, c. 5 mm long; wings wide, roughly quadrangular, with rounded or obtuse angles, anterior margins and lower lobe ciliated, no tooth present; stigma obovate, membranously expanded, wider than the column.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: FR, EP, NL, MU, YP, SL, SE.   W.Aust.; N.S.W.; Vic. Occurs singly or in small groups in mainly alkaline soils in scrub, mallee or mallee-heathland, in areas receiving 250-600 mm annual rainfall.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Sept., Oct.


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

Biology: This species very closely resembles P. rufa and was treated previously as synonymous: J. Weber & Bates (1978) Fl. S. Aust. p. 447. Blackmore and Clemesha considered P. pusilla to be synonymous with P. tufa subsp. aciculiformis (Nicholls) Blackmore & Clemesha (1968) Orchadian 2:164. M. Clements (1982) in the Preliminary Checklist of Australian Orchidaceae, p. 176 accepts P. pusilla as a distinct species.

Author: Not yet available


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