ORCHIDACEAE

Green Calandenia (orchid)

 

0.08m - 0.16m (8-16cm) 

Flowers 1-3 short lived, sometimes not openingcreamish green to yellowish green internally, greenish brown externally, labellum pink with purple bars and blotches, the apex, calli dark purplish black, column greenish, spotted and blotched with red. 

Papery capsule 

Leaf narrowly linear, base slightly reddish, densley hairy. Scape very slender and wiry, sparsely hairy. 

Burnie; Central Coast; Devonport; Flinders Island; Huon Valley; Kentish; King Island; Kingborough; Latrobe; Launceston; Meander Valley; Southern Midlands; Waratah-Wynyard; West Coast; West Tamar 

Dry Eucalypt Forest and Woodland; Heath 

Occurs in shrubby and heathy open eucalypt forest and tea tree shrubland. Soils covered with bracken and heavy leaf litter. 

Dry; Exposed; Exposed 

Moderate 

Clay; Fertile; Loam; Sandy; Well-drained 

Plants often hidden under bracken. Fires are relatively infrequent in this habitat, and flowering plants have been found one or two years after fire. 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.