NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE

Printable Page

Synonyms: Bunochilus major D.L.Jones APNI*

Description: Terrestrial herb

Rosette stalk 50–120 mm long; leaves 3 to 6, lanceolate to narrow elliptic, 8–40 mm long by 4–8 mm wide, margins entire and plane or crinkled; petioles to 4 mm long.

Flowering plants 12–65 cm tall, stem leaves 5 to 7, linear-lanceolate to narrow elliptic, 15–95 mm long by 2–8 mm wide. Flowers 1–11, porrect, remote, 14–18 mm long by 6.5–8.5 mm wide, translucent bright green with darker green stripes; sepal tips green to brown. Dorsal sepal 14–18 mm long when flattened, shallowly curved. Synsepalum elliptical, 13–16 mm long by 6.5–8.5 mm wide, flat, notched to 4.0–5.5 mm deep; margins curved, tips parallel to divergent to 3–5 mm apart. Petals obliquely oblong, narrow at base where c. 1.0 mm wide, 13–15 mm long by 2.5–3.0 mm wide; anterior margin straight or shallowly curved, basal flanges absent. Labellum ovate-oblong, 5.5–7.0 mm long by 2.0–2.6 mm wide, pale yellowish green to pale green with a dark brown to black-brown basal mound and central stripe; surface cells acicular, to 0.7 mm long over most of the labellum except the midlobe; basal mound c. 2 mm high, with an erect apical lobe, obtuse; margins shallowly incurved, lateral lobes narrow; midlobe 1.3–1.6 mm long, narrow, shortly notched, the lobes acute to acuminate; apex upcurved.

Habitat Photo Lachlan Copeland

Habit Photo Lachlan Copeland

Flower Photo Lachlan Copeland

Flowering: April–September

Distribution and occurrence: Northern New South Wales on the Northern Tablelands including the New England Tablelands and Copeland and Gloucester Tops, between 900–1400 m elevation.

In wet sclerophyll forest among shrubs and tussocks.
NSW subdivisions: NT

AVH map***

Pterostylis major is very similar to P. longifolia, both share conspicuous glaucous (blue-grey) tuberculate ornamentation on the inner synsepalum surface, lack basal flanges on the petals, have long acicular cells on the surface and especially around the margin of the labellum disc and lateral lobes, which contrasts with the unarmed labellum midlobe, and the labellum is strikingly ornate multi-coloured labellum wherein a dark brown to black-brown medial stripe contrasts with cream and green flanks (green toward the base and the margins, encircling the cream adjacent to the medial stripe) and a fawn apical region including the midlobe and lateral lobes. Differences between P. major and P. longifolia are subtle, context dependent, and the geographic ranges of the two species may overlap which complicates identification. Pterostylis major differs from P. longifolia in details of its labellum, best assessed in living plants. In P. major the labellum is narrower in proportion to its length, exhibits a perceptible tapering from base to apex, and the lateral lobes are inconspicuous among the marginal cilia. This could be because in living flowers the lateral lobes are upcurved, as is the midlobe, and the labellum outline in natural conformation is not the same as when flattened, hence the contradiction between the above and the recognition statement provided by Jones (2006), who stated that the labellum of P. major is more tapered than the labellum of P. longifolia. The labellum markings exhibit some differences between the two species, in P. major the medial stripe is narrower relative to labellum width, and the labellum often has larger cream flanking regions than in P. longifolia. Pterostylis major is also a larger species overall, in both stature and flower size, and labellum length (up to 7 mm long), though whether any dimension results in a discrete difference is unknown. Despite midlobe length being described as 'much-longer' in P. major the descriptions in Jones (2006) give contiguous ranges of variation, 1.0–1.3 mm in P. longifolia and 1.3–1.6 mm in P. major.