ORCHIDACEAE

Pink Autumn Orchid; Parsons Bands

 

0.1m - 0.25m (10-25cm) 

small flowers that have a pair of enlarged white or pink lateral sepals, tiny thin petals, and a sharply recurved hairy labellum closely embracing the column. An ovate dark green ground hugging leaf develops fully after flowering. 

Papery capsule 

Summer and autumn flowering orchid with a thin, wispy, usually leafless scape. 

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

Dry Eucalypt Forest and Woodland; Grassy Vegetation; Heath 

A range of habitats from heathy open eucalypt forest to heathland and buttongrass moorland on well drained aswell as poorly drained soils. 

Dry; Exposed; Moist; Shady; Waterlogged 

Hardy 

Clay; Loam; Poor; Poorly-drained; Sandy; Well-drained 

Flowering is adversely affected by summer fires (jones 1998). The flowers produce nectar that gathers in the base of the labellum. Well represented in reserves. 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.