Orchids - Flying Ducks and Leek Orchids, as well as Bird Orchids

I have seen and shown these all before, but some things are of interest about these.

Firstly, the Flying Duck Orchids are very early in my experience.
These ones are flowering in an area which National Parks Service managed to burn last year. I have never seen them here before, so put that down as a beneficial side-effect of a "controlled burn".

Flying Duck Orchid
has the best name imaginable.
It is officially Caleana major, named after a Mr Caley,
but Botanical Latin does not allow the letter "Y".

head -on shot of the Flying Duck Orchid.
Its black "beak" is facing you.

the Short-lipped Leek Orchid
Prasophyllum brevilabre
These are also flowering in an area which was burnt
by NPWS.

The rare and endemic Wollongong Bird Orchid
It is not found in Wollongong,
but rather, up on the Budderoo Plateau.
It is described as being located in the general "Knights Hill" area
but as Knights Hill is a basalt intrusion
through the Sandstone Plateau, with rainforest habitat,
even that locator is misleading.
This area is adjacent to the better known Barren Grounds.
As with the Barren Grounds, it is a classic Sandstone heathland habitat.
You can see the white sand grains in the photo.

Another Chiloglottis chlorantha in flower.
The vast majority of these rare plants
on the Budderoo Plateau were burnt last September
But they appear to have survived.
These two flowers were in an unburnt patch.
Some of those which were burnt
are budding up, but the unburnt ones
are flowering much earlier than any burnt ones.

Better weather, better photos of Bird Orchids

Following on from yesterday's post on the Bird Orchids on the Budderoo Plateau, the weather was better today (at least not raining), and the flowers were one day more mature, and hence more open.

We found this particularly fine plant today,

just begging to be photographed.

Illawarra Bird Orchid - Simpliglottis chlorantha

While waiting to take these photos, I noticed that the labellum 

is very subject to movement on the wind.

These plants have a hinge in the labellum stalk.

The movement of the labellum was quite noticeable.

Here is a close-up shot of the osmophores (scent glands)

on the labellum of one of the flowers.

Compare the real thing 

with the botanical illustration below, (from PlantNET)

Labellum detail of the Illawarra Bird Orchid ("osmophores" or scent glands)

Unless you actually see these strange scent glands, 

it is hard to imagine that they are real. 

They look like green and red dobs of jelly, 

but are more solid than they look.

Illawarra Bird Orchid - Botanical illustration from PlantNET

As a fringe benefit, I realised that there was tiny Flower Spider 

hiding up inside the column of one of these Bird Orchid flowers.

The yellow pollinia sacs are the point where

the Orchid needs a pollinator to come to. 

And that's where the Spider is waiting!

Flower Spider waiting besides the yellow pollinia of the Bird Orchid

Cunning little things, aren't they?
It was tiny - not much bigger than a match-head.

Illawarra Bird Orchids start to flower on Budderoo Fire Trail

I have posted about the Bird Orchids of Budderoo Plateau in previous years.

I cannot help it.

They are so extraordinary, and so localised that I always feel a glow of satisfaction when I find them.

This year, they have started to flower today, 17 August. I have found them flowering as early as 19 July in 2008, and yet they have been known to flower as late as 23 September.

This plant is known also by the name Illawarra Bird Orchid -  a reference to the "open-mouthed" posture of a baby bird, begging for food.

I have been watching these plants for about 5 weeks, firstly as leaves, then as leaves with small buds, then leaves with large upright buds, and today flowers just opening, despite the light rain which was falling. Situation normal on the Budderoo Plateau. These plants grow in shallow soil over a sandstone rock shelf. They flower in late winter, and early spring, when the shallow soil is frequently wet. This heathland on shallow soil is a harsh environment, subject to extreme drying out over summer. These plants become totally dormant at that stage - they lose their leaves and hide under the soil. A good survival strategy.

I am referring to this plant by the name Simpliglottis chlorantha, but PlantNET obstinately refuses to recognise that name. So, when I refer to the illustration from their site, I use the name which they use, Chiloglottis chlorantha.

Note the extraordinary large calli 

or osmophores (scent-producing glands)

on the broad labellum (on left of image).

Illustration from PlantNET - "Chiloglottis chlorantha"

Simpliglottis chlorantha in situ under heath plants

These plants grow in and under the low heath plants 

and "Eggs and Bacon" Pea flowers

which thrive on the shallow moist, peaty soil over the rock shelves of the area.

The dominant heath plant (in flower at the moment) 
on Budderoo Plateau
The genus name "Leucopogon" refers to "white bearded".
This plant is in the family Ericaceae, known as "heath plants"
Click to enlarge the image, to see the bearded flowers.

Leucopogon microphyllus var microphyllus

 One of the upright Eggs and Bacon Pea flowers 

which thrive on the shallow sandstone soil.

Possibly Dillwynia sp. "Barren Grounds"

Dillwynia sp. possibly the Barren Grounds species (from nearby)

 The flower here is seen from the side. 

The "lateral sepals" protrude out in front of the flower,

then curve downwards at their tips.

Illawarra Bird Orchid - Simpliglottis chlorantha - earns its green name (chlorantha)

This is a fresh flower, and so the labellum is held quite close 

to the column.

The large pollen grains (pollinia) are just visible

held above the labellum.

Note the green and red glands (calli) on the labellum

These Orchids have two fresh green leaves flat on the ground.

The leaves are often partially covered by leaf litter.

Illawarra Bird Orchid has a red throat under the labellum.

Bird Orchids are back!

I have posted about these little charmers previously, but I am going to write them up again, because they are special.

They are highly localised plants, occurring in an area just near Robertson, on the Budderoo Plateau.These Bird Orchids get their name from the manner
in which the flower is held high,
resembling the open beak of a small bird, begging for food.
There are a number of closely related species, in other areas.
This is the only one I have seen.

This Bird Orchid is known as the "Wollongong Bird Orchid", the Green Bird Orchid, or Simpliglottis chlorantha (or Chiloglottis chlorantha).

It is found here on the Budderoo Plateau, and further south to the Budawangs. There may be some records from the Blue Mountains.

Botanical Illustration courtesy of PlantNET

Although David Jones mentions this locality in his book as Knights Hill (approx 6 Kms away), that reference is quite misleading. Knights Hill is a basalt capped mountain, with tall, wet Eucalypt forest, whereas these plants grow on shallow, sandy, peaty soil over a shallow sandstone rock shelf. They grow amongst small "heath" vegetation. In fact, they are quite hard to find, because of their tendency to grow in and amongst these low shrubby plants. One can clearly see Knights Hill from where these plants grow, but that's about all one can say in favour of that "location" note. Budderoo Plateau would have been a much better location descriptor.

You could hardly get more different habitats than Knights Hill (with a 30 metre canopy of Eucalypts and Sassafras), and where these plants are, growing under and amongst heath plants scarcely 30cm high.

Here is a close up of the Labellum.

The botanical description says: "Labellum cordate, 12–13 mm long, 9–12 mm wide, with c. 12 linear to terete, erect or curved calli on the basal two-thirds, the largest c. 3.5 mm long."

I prefer to describe the pale green, almost "luminous" green glands (calli) towards the tip of the labellum as looking like blobs of soft jelly. There are two large ones, and two small upright ones, flanking them. Behind the green glands are a series of upright glands, which look like they are made of red jelly. From the front-on view, these structures vaguely resemble chess pieces in some bizarre Chess Set, perhaps from an Alice in Wonderland story.

In the typical positioning of Chiloglottis Orchids, the column is held high, but directly above the labellum, ready to dob the sticky pollen grains on the back of a wasp which tries to mate with the flower (which smells like the female wasp).

Interestingly, the Labellum although looking quite stiff, is actually very lightly "hinged" and the labellums *** of these flowers were trembling in the warm breeze today.

This specimen has given its pollen away already,
to an unsuspecting wasp. one assumes. The yellow housing for the pollen is now empty,
and the receptive female part of the flower is clearly exposed.

Compare this flower (complete with pollen grains still present)
with the empty one, above.
This flower has an ant crawling across it, (click to enlarge image)
but the ant is not the suitable pollinator for these flowers.

*** Please forgive the use of the word "labellums", but "labella" seemed pretentious, and liable to confuse.

Bird Orchids - September 2009

Unbelievable as it seems (to me) I nearly missed the flowering of the Bird Orchids, this year. Goodness. How could I be so careless?

For some reason I had not recorded their normal flowering period in my calendar. So I found these particular plants (which I had not ever found before) as part of a general search for other Orchids.

I mean to say, I know that Bird Orchids live in this area, but I have clearly fixed in my mind the best spots to look for them - and this spot was not on my mental list.

I was checking for possible Greenhood flowers (of which there were none). So I was quite disappointed, and tired and despondent (as one gets at the end of a long and futile search). Suddenly, just before I was about to go back to the car, I found this.

It is a Bird Orchid, in flower, on the ground, beside a dead stick.

Better check around further, Denis.
OK - I now see more Orchids - all around me.Lets have a closer look at them.
This one has a bud, about to open.
Here is an open flower - which had clearly been open when the big dust storm blew through the entire region, on Wednesday 23 September 2009. I saw the flower on the Sunday.
You can clearly see the coating of fine red dust - even inside the flower..
Here is the same flower - shot from a very low angle. You can see the pollinia in position still, in the column.
Looking down into the flower.
You can see the large glands on the labellum.
Some are green, others red.
Their shapes are different, too.
The front one is oval and quite flow in profile.
The rear (lower) ones are narrow and upright.



This next plant is closing its flower.
Presumably it has been pollinated.
This is the normal position for the flowers of this family of Orchids to adopt, after pollination.
It serves to protect the flower, as it starts to develop the seeds.
Once pollination has been achieved, the stem of this flower will grow much higher than it currently is.
It will do this, in order to help spread the
fine dust-like seeds as far as possible, on the wind.






There will be an observation test regarding this image.

Did you see it?





What?









The Frog spawn.







Look in in the junction of the leaves and the stem of the Orchid.

When I was out there, the country was so dry that the moss on the shallow rocks was crunching under my feet. I could hear it happen as I walked around. So, an enterprising frog (well a pair of them as you will realise) have deposited their "spawn" in this situation, in order to prevent their spawn from being dried out on the dry rocks, or loose sandy soil. This is a strategy reminiscent of those tiny frogs in the tall tropical rainforest which live within those cup-shaped Bromeliad plants.

It has been raining in Robertson for two days now, so the puddles on the Budderoo Plateau will be full again, now. But, last week, while it was still dry, this pair of frogs avoided laying their "spawn" on dry materials (dry moss and lichen, or sandy soil). Those frogs have given their offspring just a chance of surviving that crucial first week after being laid.

Interesting. I have never seen this adaptive behaviour before.

"Little Dumpies" found (at last) on Mt Gibraltar

I have been told for several years that the oddly-named "Little Dumpies" Orchids grow on The Gib. The name is not very flattering, but the flower itself is quite handsome, in a Greenhoodish kind of way. It is a relatively large flower, a little heavy in the front end of the "hood", but on a short stem. That is the reason for both the common name, and its scientific name Diplodium (or Pterostylis) truncata.

Here is the Botanical illustration from PlantNET, (from the linked site above).

Here is one growing amongst native grasses, in a fairly open position.

I have searched "The Gib" for these plants for two years, but my friends Colin and Mischa, came up from Victoria this week, and they had seen them here previously, and knew what to look for, and more importantly where and when to look for them. As with all Greenhoods, these plants go dormant, and become impossible to find. They are hard enough to find, even when in flower, because they tend to grow amongst grasses and other small plants in little rock crevices.

Note the heavy front end of the "hood" and the very fine "points" or "ears".

Colin's camera lens adds a sense of scale.

Fron the front end, you can see the blunt hood.
This specimen had nice "points" either side of the hood.

After Colin and Mischa's success in finding this Greenhood, I showed them some other leaves of other Orchids which I had been monitoring for some time, but without ever finding flowers on them. We scoured the patch of dense grass where the leaves were, and Colin found a flower. It turns out to be a large "Wasp Orchid" - Chiloglottis trilabra.

Botanical illustration courtesy of PlantNET (from the linked site above).Note the "glands" on the labellum going almost to the fine end of the Labellum
Also note the Labellum has a central "tip" which is clearly illustrated above.
Sorry the photo is so dark. I shall take a better image soon and replace these.
(Click to enlarge the images)
From the side, you can see the Lateral Sepals hang more or less straight down.
They are neither "reflexed" (as is Ch. reflexa)
nor bent forward underneath the flower, as is Ch. diphylla

I say large, compared to most of the other species of "Wasp Orchids" I have seen in the Southern Highlands, but of course, it is small compared to the Simpliglottis chlorantha, one of a related group of plants, which have now been split off from the Chiloglottis, (for very good reasons, I believe). Those larger flowered plants are better known as "bird orchids".

Bird Orchids still going strong

I have been away (to Brisbane) and then I have taken a break, to try and catch up with other writing. I have not achieved that goal, but I feel I need the discipline imposed by daily blogging. So I am getting back into it.

Today I am doing an easy blog - another story about the local Bird Orchids out on the Budderoo Plateau. Simpliglottis chlorantha, (a.k.a. Chiloglottis chlorantha), the Wollongong Bird Orchid. It is not found in Wollongong, but rather, up on the Budderoo Plateau, It is described as being located in the general "Knights Hill" area, but as Knights Hill is a basalt intrusion through the Sandstone Plateau, with rainforest habitat, even that locator is misleading. This area is adjacent to the better known Barren Grounds. As with the Barren Grounds, it is a classic Sandstone heathland habitat.

Wollongong Bird Orchid - Simpliglottis chlorantha
The red colour is underneath the "labellum" which is held nearly vertical.

I took Alan Stephenson from ANOS Illawarra to see these plants. At least we found many flowers, with some buds still to come. Alan has a contact, a scientist from the ANU who has studied pollination of Orchids (by pseudo-copulation by certain species of wasps), and he wanted to ascertain that these plants are still flowering, before advising this chap that it is worth the trip here. Well, yes, it should be.

A perfect bud

The "osmophores" (glands) on the Labellum.
The largest glands are red, and very large.
Smaller tall glands in the middle are yellowish green.
At the very front of the labellum is a series of rounded glands.
The largest one, at the front, is heart-shaped, and resembles a small blob of green jelly.

This is a photo of the very first flower I found open (this year), on 19 July 2008. You can see that the leaves have been chewed heavily, presumably by slugs or snails. In this location, one would assume that these would be native creatures. You can see that the plant closes the labellum against the "column" to protect the stigma, once the plant has been pollinated. Judging by how severely this plant has been chewed, that looks like a good survival strategy.

Here is the very same flower, as photographed on 19 July 2008 . You can see the distinctively bent stem (photo taken from a different angle).Here is the side-on view of the same flower, as taken on 19 July 2008 (6 weeks ago). Given that there are still a number of small buds in this little colony of plants, they obviously have a long flowering season.

Bird Orchids again

Colin and Mischa came out to the sandstone plateau country of the Budderoo to see the Bird Orchids. According to their sharp eyes, it seems there are many Orchids which should be able to be found there at other seasons - Thelymitra (Sun Orchids), Speculantha (Tiny Greenhoods) and Corunastylis (Midge Orchids).
There were not many Bird Orchids in flower. However, it was great to see areas where the ground was carpeted in leaves.
While some flowers are fully open, many buds were in evidence.
This Bird Orchid is fully open, and the pollinia (pollen grains) had been dislodged by an insect attempting to mate with the flower, in the course of pollinating it. You can see the relatively large golden pollinia lying on the labellum.
We left the Budderoo and went across to Macquarie Pass to see the Pterostylis hildae, which is new to them. Straight away, they settled in to photographing these plants, from all angles. The two lightened "rings" in the image indicate the location of Greenhoods they were each photographing. By contrast, I have to lie down on the ground and get within 4 inches of the flower to capture decent images. Different technologies for different people.
This shot indicates one of the drawbacks of my approach - a leech firmly planted on a wet leaf, is sniffing the air, working out where its prey (me) is.
I put my finger down in front of the leech, and it latched on straight away. I had expected that it would "loop" its way up along my finger. But it did not. I did a bit of a panic, and sought help from Colin to get it off me (because I had my camera in my other hand), before it had time to cut its way into my finger, and inject its anti-coagulant juices. Fortunately, we were fast enough to have avoided it cutting into me.Colin, who claims to have a magnetic force field to attract leeches, then checked his ankles, and had to remove at least one leech. Mischa did the same a little while later.

A few more photos of the Bird Orchid.

A few more photos of the Bird Orchid which I took with Chris from the Australasian Native Orchid Society (Illawarra Branch) today. Chris came down from Helensburgh to see these plants, and Colin and Mischa are going to come from Melbourne soon, too, to see both lots of plants.
Chris and I first went to see the Pterostylis hildae (Rainforest Greenhood) on Macquarie Pass. I was pleased to note that there are many buds still coming on. I did look at some other Chiloglottis leaves down there, but one which I had been following (with very large leaves) had been nibbled off, as its bud developed. Bugger. How can a Wallaby know to pick out the particular Orchid bud which is likely to be of special interest, as the one to eat? It ain't fair!

The good news was that when Chris and I moved across to the Budderoo Plateau, we found a Bird Orchid flower which was just a bud last week. Great.

Wollongong Bird Orchid, Simpliglottis chlorantha (Chiloglottis chlorantha)

At least this one was out in the open, not underneath a low-growing Banksia bush like last week's plant. You can see the oval-shaped leaves, the short stem, and the relatively large flower, compared to other members of the Chiloglottis group.

Labellum - cropped.

One group I am looking forward to photographing is this pair of buds, which conveniently look as if the flowers will be facing eachother. That should be a nice image when these buds open.
Then we went to look at and sniff the aroma of the Leucopogons. While doing that, we found a whole heap more of the Bird Orchids. So I left them for another day's photographing.