ORCHIDACEAE

Large Duck Orchid

 

0.2m - 0.4m (20-40cm) 

Usually bearing 1-3 flying-duck-shaped reddish flowers with a sensitive hinged, smooth, broad labellum that snaps into the broad reddish column wings when touched. 

Papery capsule 

Broad reddish, often spotted leaf, tall wiry scape. 

Break O'Day; Burnie; Central Highlands; Clarence; Derwent Valley; Dorset; Flinders Island; Georgetown; Glamorgan-Spring Bay; Hobart; Huon Valley; Kentish; Kingborough; Latrobe; Launceston; Northern Midlands; Sorell; Southern Midlands; Tasman; Waratah-Wynyard; West Tamar 

Dry Eucalypt Forest and Woodland; Heath 

Heathy open eucalypt forest, she-oak woodland, tea-tree scrub and heathland. Widespread and locally common in lowland areas below 250m in the north, east and south east and on Flinders Is. Also in Qld, N.S.W., Vic. and S.A. 

Dry; Exposed; Shady 

Tender 

Loam; Poor; Sandy; Well-drained 

Suitable below powerlines. 

 

Standard 

 

 

Orchid seeds are very minute yellow, brown or blackish dust-like particles. Orchid seeds are produced within a capsule that splits at maturity and releases tousands to millions of seeds. Dispersed by wind and water and only germinate following infection of the embryo by a suitable mycorrhizal fungus. Very few seeds become mature plants. For more information see Jones, Wapstra, Tonelli, Harris (1999): The Orchids of Tasmania.