Not often I can show Alan Stephenson a new Orchid species (for him).

It is not often I can show Alan Stephenson a new species of Orchid (for him).
So, please allow me some indulgence.

Alan photographing his first
Thelymitra circumsepta

Sorry about the background. It was Alan's back-pack.

Thelymitra circumsepta (in this region)
has a pinkish post anther lobe.
Photos from Victoria and Tasmania
do not show that colour.

I wrote a full report about this species back in 2010 when I first found and identified this plant, locally.
That was in Kangaloon, but the time was very similar. It is obviously a late blooming species of Sun Orchid.

Penrose and Tallong Cemeteries

Today I went with some local botanical artists to see some of the local Orchids which survive with little disturbance at Penrose Cemetery and Tallong Cemetery. This year was drier than in previous years, and so, many of the orchids had finished flowering already. And at Tallong the Goulburn-Mulwarree Council mowers had destroyed the famous collection of purple Diuris plants there. Alan Stephenson was less than impressed, as he had an arrangement with the Parks and Gardens supervisor; except that chap had moved jobs, and had not left a file note for the new incumbent.

But here are some of the Orchids we did find. And an unusual "flower Spider".

Thelymitra pauciflora

Side view of the column of
Thelymitra pauciflora
These flowers were heavily reflexed
in the warm, sunny weather

Purple Bearded Orchid
Calochilus platychilus
(formerly known as Cal. robertsonii)

two flowers of Calochilus platychilus

Thelymitra ixioides
Spotted Sun Orchid

Diuris sulphurea
Tiger Donkey Orchid

Two forms of Purple Diuris
Diuris punctata
from Tallong (left) and Penrose (right)

Spotted spider on Daviesia latifolia.

Pink form of Thelymitra pauciflora

They're called Sun Orchids for a reason.

After finding the first buds (for this year) of the Thelymitra kangaloonica (Kangaloon Sun Orchid) last week, I have been back four times during the week to check on their progress.

Even though some days were what I would call "watery sunshine", it was not enough to persuade them to open.

Today was perfect. According to the local Rural Fire Service Automatic Weather monitoring station, we maxed out at 22.8 C today (in Robertson) - maybe a few extra degrees down lower, at Kangaloon. It is possibly more important that the Solar intensity was rated as extreme. Clear skies will do that.

Anyway, the plants I had been monitoring all popped their flowers today. One even managed to open 5 flowers on a single day.

Thelymitra kangaloonica growing amongst rushes, in a damp soak.

 The same plants a little closer up.

Thelymitra kangaloonica - the plant on the left opened 5 flowers today.

I have adopted this image as my Facebook Avatar.
I love this plant, and regard it as something of a personal Totem,

When this plant flowers, my heart sings.

It has a mauve back of the flower,

and some of that mauve colour shows on the front too,

but the front is clearly veined with dark blue stripes.

The top of the column (the post anther lobe") is distinctively notched.

The column arms and brushes are pure white.

A fresh flower of Thelymitra kangaloonica.

I guess I feel I have a proprietary interest in this plant

as I managed to nominate it on the EPBC Threatened Species List

and it was listed as a "Critically Endangered Species".

Thelymitra kangaloonica -  nice side view as well as the front view.

 A cropped view of the "column" of this  species.

The yellow "post anther lobe" is very different from the

photos of columns of Thelymitra ixioides I published last week

Column details of Thelymitra kangaloonica

Column arms and brushes of Thelymitra kangaloonica

Side view showing the "brushes" on the column arms.

Here are two generalised habitat views - for Mick 

who always likes to know the habitat where the plants which I show grow.

 The main plants are grasses and rushes.

Some small Melaleucas, Grevilleas and Swamp Grass Trees

A wet soak, part of an "Upland Swamp"on sandstone

In the drier edges of the soak, the Lomandras take over, then Scribbly Gums.

Tiny details of difference reveal the hybrid origins. (Well, maybe not)

I referred yesterday to the "hybrid" forms of the Spotted Sun Orchid, Thelymitra ixioides. In this case the form is known as Thelymitra x irregularis.

EDIT: My friend Colin Rowan has persuaded me that these plants are in fact colour variants of Thelymitra ixioides, NOT hybrids. The "true hybrid form" is shown from last year, at the end of this post. It has the yellow "brushes", not just the yellow pappilose tips to the column. Colin says that is the only true hybrid form in this set.

Tonight I will show a few examples of the same group of plants which were growing in a tight cluster, around two adjacent trees, within 30 metres of eachother.

As a base-line point of reference, I will start with one "standard form" of Thelymitra ixioides

column details of Thelymitra ixioides - Nowra, 28/8/2011

 Here is the other reputed parent of the hybrid forms illustrate today.

Thelymitra carnea has the pink colour and 

the yellow top of the column - the "post-anther lobe".

Thelymitra carnea - the Pink Sun Orchid.

Here is the botanical illustration of what I have photographed 
of Thelymitra ixioides (first image above).

PlantNET botanical illustration - note the "papillose-toothed tips"

To make matters worse, here is the botanical description from PlantNET.

"Column to 5 mm long, erect, bluish. 

Midlobe with a dense rows of long, variable, colourful calli; 

accessory lobes columnar, erect with papillose-toothed tips. 

Lateral arms obliquely erect, 

with terminal tufts of white, pink or mauve hairs." 

"Papillose" literally refers to the "nipple-shaped" tips at the back of the column.
Don't blame me - its the botanists who invent and use these terms.

See the illustration for "pappilate" - middle level, 3rd from left.

Anyway, having established what we are looking at, lets move on.

************

This is yesterday's plant, which is closest to the lilac coloured form 

which is illustrated in David Jones's book (P. 256)

as "Thelymitra x irregularis".

The ring of pappilose nodes in the back of the column

are yellow in this one.

They are black in the "species" form.

Colin points out Jones shows a plant with yellow brushes

not white as in my plant.
See the two last images in this post for the true hybrid form

Column details for Thelymitra ixioides.

This is one is the clearest pink of the hybrid plants I photographed today. 

This one has a red collar 

underneath the golden pappilose nodes.

One of the pink forms of "Thelymitra ixioides".

And my personal favourite image of these column details.

This flower was in-between pink and lilac in colouration.

I like the way the 'arms" turn away from eachother.

Thelymitra ixioides

This next specimen looks as if something has interfered with the pollinia.

From the looks of it, there is a pollen sac stuck on top of the 

 "accessory lobe" the yellow protruding structure

on my left-hand side of this image.

Thelymitra ixioides

***********************

Last year, at Penrose cemetery I even photographed a pink hybrid form

with golden coloured lateral arms 
(instead of the normal white or bluish fluffy "brushes").
So, although it is outside today's "cluster" of hybrid plants,
it is worthwhile showing, for the full contrast it offers.

Pink hybrid Thel. x irregularis - note the golden column arms.

I have never photographed such a flower before.
 This image is a view of the column of the same flower,
photographed from the side view. 

It shows both the golden "pappilae" at the back of the column
and, more significantly, the yellow "arms".
All the other plants photographed have white column arms.
Colin agrees this is the true hybrid form

Thel. x irregularis note the yellow "brushes".

This is an even more extreme hybrid form than any I have seen this year. Interestingly, Colin and Mischa's images of this species, also taken in 2010, might well be of the same plant as I photographed last year on the ANOS Southern Highlands excursion.

What is the World Worth? An Economist values Nature

With thanks to Miss Eagle for alerting me to this forthcoming Lecture Tour.
When she emailed me today, about this I immediately asked:

• How much is Thelymitra kangaloonica worth?

• Its about time someone started asking the right questions.

Her reply owes much to Adam Smith, of course:

• Denis, one little economic rule of thumb is scarcity+demand = value.
  
• If you keep promoting the little blue friend on your blog with continued reference to its scarcity then the scarcity and demand components might be in sufficient quantity to give the little thing a quantifiable value.

***** ***** *****
I can but live in hope.
Meanwhile, if you can make it to one of these Lectures
I am sure it would be worthwhile.

***** ***** *****

Hosted by the Centre for Policy Development

What is the World Worth?

Pavan Sukhdev

Sydney 3 August | Canberra 4 August | Melbourne 5 August

The BP oil spill, which is dumping around 60,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico every day, is a tragic example of the environmental destruction business activity can cause.

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If the US Government had required what Pavan calls a "holistic economic assessment" before BP started offshore drilling, the estimates of ecosystem damage might have led to more stringent safety measures. As things stand, Pavan says "we only think about them after there is a problem, and then scurry about and chase our tails for a bit."

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Book or register now to hear how we can avoid an environmental credit crunch that could see vital ecosystems collapse. We cannot afford to ignore Pavan’s ideas for the next generation of economics and environmentalism.

SYDNEY – TICKETS SELLING FAST!!
6:30pm Tuesday 3 August 2010
Sydney Opera House, Playhouse Theatre
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Call t: 02 9250 7777 or book online.

CANBERRA
5pm Wednesday 4 August
Australian National University

Molongolo Theatre,
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RSVP to henry.keenan@anu.edu.au

MELBOURNE
5:30pm Thursday 5 August
Melbourne University
Law Building (GM15 Theatre), 185 Pelham St Carlton
This event is FREE. Register here

More ideas from CPD & Pavan Sukhdev

Kangaloon Sun Orchid - an endemic rare plant

This is the famous Kangaloon Sun Orchid, Thelymitra kangaloonica.
Haven't heard of it? Shame on you, dear reader. It has been written up here, before.

It is one of those "Threatened Species" things which we managed to use to convince Malcolm Turnbull to declare the SCA's Upper Nepean (Kangaloon) Groundwater project to be a "Controlled Action" under the EPBC Act.

And last year, Peter Garrett deemed this plant to be "critically endangered" and put it on the Threatened Species lists of the EPBC Act.

The problem for this plant is that it lives only at 3 known locations in the Southern Highlands - all of which are under the control of the SCA.

1. Wildes Meadow Swamp was flooded by the SCA to build the Fitzroy Falls Reservoir - so that registered swamp habitat (for this plant) is now permanently under water.
   
2. Stockyard Swamp is off limits to everybody except Coal Miners, Power Company workers, Drilling Rigs and all those other sensitive souls who work for the SCA. That is right in their best source of water for the SCA in trying to develop the Kangaloon Borefield - well, so they believe anyway. Orchid enthusiasts, even authentic researchers are denied access. It was where this species was first found, and "voucher specimens" collected. It was identified at that stage as belonging to a different species (Thelymitra grandiflora). Those herbarium specimens have since been re-examined and found to belong to this species.
   
3. That leaves Butlers Swamp. Fortunately, the SCA has continued to recognise as legitimate the interests of the Australasian Native Orchid Society, Illawarra Branch, which has conducted surveys of Butlers Swamp for some 30 years. Butler's Swamp is the "type locality" for this plant. In other words, the specimen from which this plant was formally described and named came from Butler's Swamp.
   

So there they were, flowering happily last weekend.

(Click to enlarge image)

Here are two flowers on a multi-flowered stem.
You can see the rich blue colouring (with a hint of purple)
and the strong veining.

And here is the distinctive column and "post-anther lobe"
(the hooded bit over the column)
The "column arms" are held relatively flat in this species
(they do not bend or curl upwards as some others do)
and are well separated from the yellow section of the "hood".
The lobe is "notched" and "toothed.
These are diagnostic features of this species.It was gratifying to see that these plants are doing quite well this year.

Lets hope that the SCA does not resume pumping from the Kangaloon Aquifer, for when they did their trial pumping, they dried the swamp out terribly, despite their denials to the contrary. We have photographic evidence of that.

Another Sun Orchid variant

Clearly this is a form of Thelymitra ixioides - the "Spotted Sun Orchid", or a hybrid derived therefrom.
Here is a close-up of the column of this (or a similar) flower.
To refresh your memory, this is the standard form of Thel. ixioides as found in the NSW Southern Highlands.
The "column arms" are right, but there is a difference (in the previous flower) in the "post anther lobe" the ring of tissue at the top of the column. This one is tipped yellow. The other is brownish-red and much more warty ("pappilose").
My Victorian colleagues publish images of Thel. ixioides with dark rims to the "post anther lobe". Here is a link to JL's images from Great Western (in the Grampians). Her photos match Colin Rowan's (taken at Anglesea).

In the same area, at Penrose, there were many of these lovely unspotted forms of the same plant.

I say that with some confidence, as this species is renowned for its variant forms, including an unspotted form of the "Spotted Sun Orchid". Confused? Don't worry - so am I.

Here is a closer image of one of the flowers.
It was a lovely blue specimen (without spots).
And here is probably my best image of the column
and the column arms.
So, what have I got here?
It might be the hybrid form of Thel. ixioides,
which is known as "Thel. x truncata".
That hybrid form has been named,
but the photos of that hybrid which I can find
do not seem to me to be truly diagnostic of the hybrid form.

Or, should I say, if their photos (from NSW and Victoria)
are true hybrid forms of "Thel. x truncata",
then these plants (in my photos from Penrose)
are of something else entirely.

Fine.
But what?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Sunny Sunday of Sun Orchids

On Sunday the Illawarra Branch of ANOS came for a tour of the highlights of the Southern Highlands. The weather was perfect for orchid hunting. Hot, and sunny, and a bit humid. The Sun Orchids were out in force.

Of course, the schedule is not accidental, for the ANOS people from the Illawarra know this area very well, and have collectively been visiting here for some 30 years, so they know when is a good time. But this year, the weather really Gods smiled on them. So did the Orchids.

I have no idea which type of Sun Orchid this plant might be.
The perianth segments (petals and sepals) were strongly reflexed back.
The column is pale blue at the base, dark purplish-blue at the top,
with a white section at the front, where they are normally yellow.

Here is a small image (only 400 pixels high)
showing the column details.
The little fluffy bits in the front are called "column arms".
Different species of Sun Orchids have
different arrangements of column arms
as well as variations in the lobes at the top of the column.

This is my next "puzzle".
There is no plant that I can see in David Jones's excellent book
which I can match with this flower.

The flower was a light powdery blue colour, with just a hint of mauve wash.
The flowers are lightly veined.
The column arms are very fine, and are slightly upcurved.
There are no other branches or structures on the column arms
apart from the fine fibrous brushes.

The column hood appears nearly black,
but on close examination it is a dark reddish-brown.
There is no sign of any yellow - which is normal on the front edge.

Here it is in close-up.
Not a hint of yellow to be seen.
Very odd.

I will publish more images over the next few days of different species of Thelymitra (Sun Orchids) which we saw.

Any advice on IDing these two plants would be gratefully received.