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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Orchidaceae
Thelymitra pauciflora

Citation: R. Br., Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. 314 (1810).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Slender) sun-orchid.

Description:
A plant of variable habit, commonly slender, 5-50 cm high; leaf narrow-linear or lanceolate, rather long, channelled or almost flat, variable in length, to 25 cm long and 3-20 mm wide.

Flowers pale-blue, lilac-blue or white, without stripes or spots, 15-25 mm diam., 1-10 in a loose raceme; only opening in very hot weather; the capsule often maturing without the perianth opening; perianth-segments similar, elliptic, subacute, 7-10 mm long, labellum mostly smaller than the other segments; column erect, c. 5 mm high, hooded; column-arms terete, more or less erect, hair-tuffs white; post-anther lobe exceeding the anther, produced into a hood variable in length and colour, usually narrow, cleft or 2-fid, the 2 halves rounded and meeting along the mid-line above the anther; anther only concealed by a stigma at the extreme base; stigma pale, situated low down; pollinia loose, friable and usually collapsing onto the stigma in the bud; no caudicle.

Published illustration: Gray (1966) Victorian native orchids 1:49; Woolcock (1984) Australian terrestrial orchids, pl. 7lB.

Distribution:  Occurs in small to extensive numbers, often in small clumps in forest and heathland in areas receiving more than 300 mm of rainfall per annum. Colonising pine plantations. Common.

S.Aust.: EP, NL, MU, SL, KI, SE.   All States except the N.T.   New Zealand.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Sept. — Nov.


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

Biology: A polymorphic species with several distinct forms in S. Aust. One of these from the Flinders Ranges has an olive-green column mid-lobe and lacks hair-tuffs, other forms from the Mt Lofty Ranges have a bright-red column mid-lobe or the column wholly blue and with purple hair-tufts. Closely approaches T. nuda in some of its forms. Putative hybrids have been reported with T. nuda (SL) and T. holmesii (SL).

Author: Not yet available


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