Thursday, September 3, 2009

More Greenhoods

Drunk with power as a result of my little foray into orchid country yesterday, I decided to go on another excursion today. I'm glad I did! It was a bit windy , so the photos are less than ideal, unfortunately.

Denis gave me a very good link to Victorian orchids and I might have stumbled on a bit of an uncommon one!

(Click images to enlarge)

If I am correct, this looks very like Pterostylis X ingens or the Sharp Greenhood. According to Colin's Orchid site, this is "endemic, unusual".
Also, it's a cross breeding between the Nodding Greenhood (Pterostylis nutans) and the Sickle Greenhood (Pterostylis falcata)


I think this is the Nodding Greenhood - Pterostylis nutans.
These Greenhoods were all growing together and I located them very quickly (about 30 seconds) after I locked the Ute up!



Plenty of these everywhere at the moment. I do love these pretty little flowers. Early Nancy - Wurmbea dioica.
I missed decent shots of the Golden Moths (Diuris pedunculata) and am blaming the wind!!






2 comments:

Denis Wilson said...

Hi JL
Well you're having a good week. Must have been the rain you got a while back.
Glad you are making good use of Colin's website.
Your Pt x ingens is a good match with Colin's, right down to the little turned up point on the tip of the hood.
That "species" is very variable, and some which I have seen here, and which I was told were "x ingens" were much more pointed than yours and Colin's plants.
I trust Colin's judgement - he is very experienced, especially re Victorian Orchids, and he also is well connected with other Orchid people. Mischa has great eyes. She can spot an Orchid at 50 paces.
Pt. nutans has "points" which do not raise up beyond the horizontal (as in your image).
Otherwise the two plants are quite similar.
Cheers
Denis

Junior Lepid said...

Hello Denis and thanks for your help. I'm a complete novice in this field as well so you may get some pestering from me, if my orchid-spotting luck holds!

I think this 'unusually normal' autumn/winter has encouraged the orchids no end. The past few years have been pretty ordinary.

I have a couple of good (secret) spots only a few kilometres from my front gate and as soon as we get a windless day, I'll revisit them. We've just had a hailstorm - so it won't be today! :-)

I'm spending a bit of time at Colin's site, familiarising myself with what I should be looking out for!