ORCHIDACEAE

Gunn's Tree Orchid

 

 

pendulous racemes of sweetly fragrant green or brown flowers, which have a large, prominant, purple-striped white labellum. 

Papery capsule 

Small epiphyte with long roots, a tuft of flat, thin textured leathery leaves. 

Break O'Day; Burnie; Circular Head; Dorset; Flinders Island; Glamorgan-Spring Bay; King Island; Latrobe; Northern Midlands; West Tamar 

Rainforest; Riparian; Wet Eucalypt Forest 

Most commonly found in sheltered, shady and permanently moist gullies, where it grows on a range of shrubs and trees, usually at about eye level, but also in rainforest and other moist forest types. It is occasionally found on low boulders. Widely scattered but locally fairly common in coastal and near coastal lowland in the east, central north and north-west, and in the Furneaux Group. Also Qld., NSW. and Vic. 

Moist; Shady; Waterlogged 

Tender 

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

Does not tolerate prolonged exposure to sun and drying wind. It is most threatened by the clearing of forest around moist gullies, which causes there habitat to dry out permanently, rather than by fires, which often do not affect the gullies. Seedlings colonise suitable areas quickly after disturbance. 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.