Journal Number 102
February 2007

NOTES etc

Ron Coleman wrote to the Orchid Specialist Group, "Each year, as I have for the past 13 years, I go out about this time to visit Dicromanthus michuacanus in SE Arizona. This and the Big Bend area of Texas are the only places it grows in the United States. It comes up after the summer rains begin in July and starts blooming in mid-October.

This year after many years of drought we had the best summer rains in our time in Arizona.
The plants responded. This year has the most blooms I have witnessed and some of the largest plants. I measured one at 65 cm which is a record for Arizona. These are the last of our orchids to bloom. They will last for another week or two and then it is wait for spring."

Mid-October: that's autumn over there - Ed.

Anne Fraser wrote (November), "During the continued monitoring of the Thelymitra matthewsii populations in the Te Paki area in early October, my two companions and I were able to visit the North Cape Scientific Reserve to confirm the species' continued presence there. That we able to do so was due to the much appreciated assistance given to the project by the Department of Conservation staff at Kaitaia and Te Paki.

The visit successfully recorded three adults in seed and a small group of juveniles, in two localities, on the plateau and near the cliffs.

"While scanning the serpentine mine workings for T. matthewsii we recorded several Pterostylis tasmanica. The first group seen, in the upper worked area, were associated with a tussock grass and the roots of Cassinia leptophylla.

The second sighting was in the lower level of the workings where they were growing in the
serpentine rubble, seven to eight plants being seen, some still in flower and others spent.
These recordings add to this species' occurrence in the Scientific Reserve.

"Thelymitra aff longifolia was beautiful, in flower in all parts of the plateau and along the access road. In one instance a honey bee was observed on a T. aff longifolia flower apparently foraging on the perianth which glistened in the sun. It did not approach the column as we watched. Typically, as usually happens, I had used up the film in the camera recording Thelymitra matthewsii, so was unable to record this interesting event."

Kevin Matthews wrote (from Kaitaia 21 Nov 06), "I have been following a particular T pulchella stripe-less variation with highly variable column arm structure which is all without cilia.
This one from a new site some 4 km distant from the one here at home.

I have described the full burst of scent as freesia, but I have had a second opinion on this particular one and they are describing it as resembling violet."

Pat Enright brought the Thelymitra flowers pictured above, having found them between Martinborough and the Wairarapa east coast.

The green sepals and pink petals might just represent the form of T. aff. pauciflora that Colenso described as T. concinna:

"Perianth, petals clear pink, sub-rhomboidal, 4 lines long, obtuse with a slight mucro, obsoletely 5-nerved; sepals a little larger than petals, oblong-ovate, concave, dull pink with a green centre; column 2-2½ lines long, rather slender, pink, hooded; the hood smooth on the back, the base dark-red; tip bright yellow, emarginated, margins entire or very slightly erose, involute; the lower lateral margins between apex and staminodia produced into 2 little curved pointed horns, one on each side; the two lateral lobes (staminodia) sub-linear-spathulate, erect, bearing a globose bushy tuft of pinkish-white hairs, which rise above the column…."

The Microtis unifolia above has all its flowers facing inwards - ie, is nonresupinate -
the effect, I suspect, of roadside weed spraying.

Ian Townsend sent some thoughts on name changes! "Yes, they are necessary, but don't worry about them.  

"My son Andrew and I had a discussion about the continuing name changes that are going on with native orchids and almost every other biological group you can think of.  

"'Not surprising', I said, 'because these things have evolved and are still evolving.  It's the scientists that want to take a snap-shot of the biological picture as of now and neatly classify everything into named categories…'

"'Don't worry about the names,' said Andrew, who is a scientist, working for the Department of Conservation; 'the name is only the tag that scientists of the moment are using to identify the thing so they can talk about it.  It's the biological entity underneath that counts - that special biological bundle that replicates itself and makes up a unit, be it plant, animal or whatever.

Names are fashionable and names change like fashions.  It's like a person underneath the clothes that they wear.  These clothes may identify a man, by a military uniform, for example, but one day he may be given a different rank, or even shed the uniform altogether to become "John Citizen"; but it's the same man underneath.  So, that little scrap of "biological entity" remains the same, whether its name has changed by studies of DNA or whatever.

"'If we wait for everything to be given a scientific label some of the precious little biological bundles could become extinct before we know them.  It's important to understand their uniqueness and not worry too much about whether they are "good" species, different genera, varieties, or forms.'

"Does that make you feel better when you find the experts can't agree?"

Speaking of name changes, readers wishing to keep up with the incursions into NZ orchid taxonomy by the Polish orchidologist Dariusz Szlachetko should look at Richardiana (www.richardiana.com).

I was awestruck by the 2003 paper [1] for which his English abstract reads, "Some more notes on the subfamily Thelymitroideae (Orchidaceae). Nomenclatural changes in Diuridae sensu latissimo (=Thelymitroideae, Orchidaceae,) proposed by Jones & al. (2002) are briefly discussed. New combinations on various taxonomic levels are validated. Several taxa are reduced to the synonymy of formerly described ones.

There are recently conducted researches - especially with the applying of molecular methods - on miscellaneous groups of orchids, the representatives of the Thelymitroideae (Lindl.) Szlach. included. The molecular researches results are - most often indiscriminately - rendering into the nomenclatural changes, what causes confusion in the taxonomy of both that and another groups of orchids.

Below we would like to assume an attitude towards the results of the studies on Thelymitroideae being published recently." The authors appear to have erected new subgenera in Arthrochilus, Caladenia, Corysanthes, Genoplesium, Microtidium, and a new section in Corybas, Corysanthes.

Thus Corunastylis (Fitzgerald) Szlachetko (subgen. Genoplesium), Molloybas (D.L.Jones & M.A.Clements) Szlachetko (subgen. Corysanthes), Nematoceras (J.D.Hooker) Szlachetko (sect. Corysanthes), Singularybas (Molloy, D.L.Jones & M.A.Clements) Szlachetko (sect. Corysanthes), Stegostyla (D.L.Jones & M.A.Clements) Szlachetko (subgen. Caladenia).

New species names would be Corysanthes acuminata (M.A.Clements & Hatch) Szlachetko, Corysanthes cryptantha (Hatch) Szlachetko, Corysanthes dienema (D.L.Jones) Szlachetko, Corysanthes iridescens (Irwin & Molloy) Szlachetko, Corysanthes longipetala (Hatch) Szlachetko, Corysanthes pandurata (Cheeseman) Szlachetko, Corysanthes papa (Molloy & Irwin) Szlachetko.

Scary really - Ed.

1. Szlachetko DL, Rutkowski P. Quelques notes additionelles sur la sous-famille Thelymitroideae.
Richardiana 2003; .3 (2): 90 - 100.

There's an old story that might be applied to those of us who get immersed in Australasian orchid taxonomy. (Sensitive readers should not read on: content may offend).

This chap, after a life of mildly pleasant sin, goes to Hell. The Devil tells him he can choose one of three pits in which to suffer for eternity. "Well, let's have a look at them" says the chap anxiously. The Devil opens the door to the first pit; the heat hits our chap in the face: naked people are being consumed by fire, their skin blistered, their hair in flames…. They progress to the second pit; all is white: people are freezing, their fingers, toes and other bits going black and snapping off…. They progress to the third pit; all is sunny, but naked people are wading about in a waist-deep, noisome mess of excrement, pus and rotting internal organs. The chap decides this seems the best of a bad lot and joins those in the third pit. A minute later a whistle blows, and the Devil shouts, "OK! smoko's over! everybody back on their heads now!"

Caladenia nothofageti is usually a solitary plant in my experience, but on 27 November,
just off the Wainuiomata Ridge Track, under beech, I saw is a colony of perhaps 30
flowering plants in a few square metres.

Here is a photograph by Olaf John of a Pterostylis banksii he and Pat Enright found at
Matawhero Station, southern Wairarapa.

The tips of its lateral sepals have not (as they normally do) rolled into a tube,
allowing them to curl forward like ribbons.