Citation: Smith, Exot. Bot. 1:57 (1804).

Synonymy: D. brevissima Fitzg. ex Nicholls, Victorian Nat. 59:54 (1942).

Common name: Common donkey-orchid, Nanny goats, leopard orchid, spotted double-tails.

Description:
Moderately slender, seldom exceeding 30 cm high; tubers oblong-conical; leaves 2 or 3, narrow-lanceolate, channelled, rarely exceeding 10 cm long.

Flowers 2-6, on rather slender pedicels in a flexuose raceme, yellow, much blotched with dark-brown, the latter colour rather distinctly demarcated from the ground yellow and not merging into it, the undersurface of the perianth more blotched than the upper, rarely wholly dark-brown dorsal sepal more or less ovate, c. 9 mm long; margins irregularly sinuous, apex bent forward lateral sepals rather stoutly linear with oblique points, greenish, recurved and crossed in the mature flower, c. 11.5 mm long; petals with a total length of 15 mm, the stalk linear, dark-brown, reflexed, c. 6 mm, lamina orbicular or almost so, spreading, upper surface yellow, lower surface much blotched with dark-brown; labellum shorter than the dorsal sepal, c. 6 mm long; lateral lobes upturned, with wide crescentic crenate recurved anterior margins, as long as the mid-lobe; midlobe obcuneate, with a widely retuse truncate tip; lamina with 2 rather widely separated fleshy prominent raised lines ending about the middle in 2 acute teeth; anther with a very short point, about as high as the viscid disk.

Published illustration: Fitzgerald (1876) Australian orchids vol. 1, pt 2; Cady & Rotherham (1970) Australian native orchids in colour, pl. 17; Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 198.

Distribution:  Occurring singly or in small groups in various soils in heathland, scrub or open forest.   N.S.W.; Vic.; Tas. Conservation status: native Flowering time: July — Nov.

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

Biology: A polymorphic species with at least 2 distinct forms in S.Aust. Plants from the SL region are paler yellow with more extensive dark markings than those from elsewhere. Putative hybrids have been reported with D. longifolia (SL) and D. palustris (MU).

Author: Not yet available