Gastrodia
(the pot-bellied flower)

Non-green saprophytes with the leaves reduced to scale bracts.
Sepals and petals united to form a lobed tube, partly split down one side.

There are 2 forms in NZ
A:  Self pollinated, with a short column.
B:  Insect pollinated, with a long column.

Gastrodia cunninghamii
(for Richard Cunningham)

Mature plants are tall and robust, with up to 40, ± tuberculate, greyish-green-to-black flowers.
The column is very short. The mycorrhizal fungus involved is Armillaria mellea.

Distribution - Endemic - North, South, Stewart and Chatham Is.

Flowers - November - February - Self pollinated.
The ridges on the back of the column expand like springs and force the pollinia down on to the stigma.

Gastrodia minor
(smaller than G.cunninghamii

A very slender, few-flowered plant with narrow brown flowers.

Distribution - Endemic - North Id., from the Waitakere and Hunua Ranges southwards. South Id., Stewart Id.

Flowers - November - January - Self pollinated
Lives in a mycorrhizal association with manuka.

Gastrodia aff sesamoides

Up to 90cm tall with as many as 20 flowers, varying in colour from white to dark mustard-yellow. The column is almost as long as the labellum.

Distribution - Endemic - North, South Is.

Flowers - October - December - insect pollinated.
The mycorrhizal partner here is the bracket-fungus Fomes mastoporus. The orchid grows with a variety of legumes and pines.

There are in NZ several other tag-named plants in the long-column group.