Corybas cheesemanii

Our only Corybas is Corybas cheesemanii, a tiny forest floor dweller, its flower and leaf often almost buried in the leaf litter, not exactly flaunting itself to insects.

The characteristics of its genus are the large, enclosing dorsal sepal, the much reduced lateral sepals and petals, the strongly folded labellum with a pair of deflexed closed spurs at the base, the squat column with its anterior base expanded into a swollen fleshy pad.

It has been said that that pad is a nectary, but I have seen no proof of that, and whereas orchid spurs usually contain nectar, these contain no liquid.

Which is as one would expect, since the flower is self pollinating.

The upward facing cupped stigma is perfectly placed to catch falling pollen, and there is little in the way of an intervening rostellar/stigmatic shelf to bar the way.

Almost every flower of Corybas cheesemanii sets fruit, the thick elongated fruiting stems seeming disproportionately large compared with the tiny plants.