Journal Number 111
February 2009

Notes etc

ANNE FRASER WROTE, "Orchids on Safari in Madagascar. A somewhat sudden decision to
join a group on a trip to Madagascar saw Maureen Young and me part of a small safari, flying
to Johannesburg and Antananarivo (known locally as Tana) the capital of Madagascar, at the
end of June and into July.

I had always wanted to go to Madagascar to see lemurs and enjoy the wonderful orchid flora
of that legendary continental island.

It was too early in the year to see most species in flower although a handsome specimen of
a winter flowering Angraecum, in flower in a pot, was photographed at one of our hotels.

On our first walk near the Ambositra area, large clumps with clustered pseudobulbs which
suggested a Bulbophyllum species, were seen along the branches of low trees in a shrubby
forest on the slope of a granite escarpment. The first terrestrial species I saw were here in
seed among grasses, and another later, a rosette of pointed leaves and stem also with a seed
pod, on a bank above the river at Ranomafana. At Tsaranoro in the Lemur habitat reserve, the
orchids were more lithophytic among rocks, and were robust plants with leafy stems and aerial
roots.

Several epiphytes were noted especially at Ranomafama.

At the Arboretum the Madagascan endemic leafless vanilla, plastered its thick photosynthetic
stems up small dry trees. An orchid that looked like a clump of grass caught my interest there.
We saw the commercial vanilla V. planifolia trained up pollarded trees at the spice farm and at
the east coast, at Mananjary, ate lunch facing the Indian Ocean, where the warm breeze carried
the sweet scent of vanilla pods, drying in the sun on a small table nearby.

An interesting association was the orchid species seen in a niche in a scherophyllous elephant's
foot plant (Pachypodium sp.) high on Chameleon mountain, a huge granite massif above our
camp at Tsaranoro.

On the trek into the canyon in sandstone buttes near Isalo, a tiny orchid on a slim branch, had
tiny open flowers on a spray below the two fleshy leaves. This was dry shrub land and one other
terrestrial species was photographed there, and another lithophytic plant was seen near the stream.

No orchids were observed in the spiny forest among the baobab trees at Ifaty on the west coast.

Apart from the orchids, the many plant species were wonderfully interesting and the affinities
with genera from our flora were fascinating and at times surprising."

VIC VERCOE EMAILED the nice shots of Petalochilus chlorostylus and Petalochilus aff. chlorostylus shown in the photos below on 24 November. The shape is almost exactly the same, but those red papillae on the dorsal sepal are striking.

GORDON SYLVESTER EMAILED (23 November), "If the weather gods are anywhere kind I will
usually stop and have a look at various parts of the roadside while travelling to or from Christchurch.

Generally this results in extending a range of a genus or species. But occasionally a searcher will
get lucky.

Recently Thom Pendrigh of Oxford told me about the site of a Nematoceras on S.H. 73. I decided
on my next trip to look at this site and see if anything was visible. About a week later Steve Reekie
emailed a photo of a Nematoceras he had found at Arthurs Pass.

This piqued my curiosity even more. My partner and I were due to travel to Ch'ch for a function on 21 Nov. I decided to stop briefly at Thom's suggested site. We parked the ute and I disappeared into the scrub and spotted some small florets of Pterostylis oliveri and a few N. macranthum-like leaves with the occasional tri-lobate leaf as well. My partner called out that she had found what she thought might be an orchid. She sure had.

On our return home on Saturday I emailed several members with a copy of the digital photograph. Mark Moorhouse thought it resembled a find of his from Mt Arthur at the same altitude. It was found at 840m asl under light Dracophyllum scrub on a scree slope with a light covering of humus. What is remarkable is the depth of colour.

Oh and by the way there were several other plants with flowers in varying stages. All had the purple pitted margins to the edges of the leaf."

It has a very long, but rounded dorsal sepal, suggesting (to me) a hybrid between N. trilobum s.s. and perhaps N. macranthum or a late-flowering member of the N. rivulare aggregate - Ed.

PHIL NORTON EMAILED from Blenheim (13 Oct), "It has been a while since you last walked the Rarangi track. I went a bit earlier this year to try to catch some species that I usually miss in November. I found a rather nice Cyrtostylis rotundifolia and a community of this strange looking flower. The leaf is similar to C. rotundifolia and it looks like some sort of Cyrtostylis but like nothing I can find in the field guide or on the NZNOG web site. No doubt you can pin a tag on it for me.   Your confidence is touching Phil. The lower ovary has swollen and the flower has wilted. The upper flower is hard to discern from the photograph, but the dorsal and the labellum look too narrow for rotundifolia, as you say. It looks rather like C. huegellii, as David Jones has it illustrated (A complete guide to Native orchids of Australia, p.163). - Ed.

MEXICO IS COLOUR. Vivid, vibrant, vital. A culture as old as Egypt, but with issues we can relate
to - the tension of being next door to a powerful, rich country; and a post-colonial biculturalism
(Spanish and indigenous peoples) more fraught than ours.

Orchids are unusual in autumn, so I didn't make any special arrangements to see Mexican orchids,
but I should have - they flower all year in that delightful climate. There were tantalising glimpses
from the bus as we wound our way through the southern central highlands of Chiapas between
Palenque and San Cristòbal de las Casas: I could identify the crucifix orchid (Epidendrum sp., see
photo below) in flaming dozens, but not the very few, big-as-your-hand, solitary pink flowers,
high up on the roadside banks, out of reach of collectors - Ed.

The April and October 2008 issues of the North American Native Orchid Journal are now available
and may be accessed at http://culturesheet.org/wiki:user:nanoj:start.

MARK MOORHOUSE EMAILED (12 November), "Just a follow up on Val Smith's well written and
informative article on John Robertson. Her last statement regarding Calochilus robertsonii, 'but
in New Zealand is confined to a few sites in the central North Island, where it's survival is at risk',
is perhaps a little misguided by the presently available map in the current Field Guide.

Nelson's Takaka Valley has quite a strong representation of this species. A couple of weeks back
they were in full flower, (see photos below) and at least 30 plants were mixed with the more plentiful
Calochilus paludosus on one of the better sites. The latter will be in flower about now and for a
fortnight or so.

"There are also present a large number of Thelymitra and one of these species has extraordinarily
long bracts and will not open until about the middle of December. Is it possible to find a natural
hybrid between Thelymitra and Calochilus, as I see from Murray Dawson's article [NZNOJ 110 p. 26] that they are closely allied genetically?

"Another interesting plant found by Nelson's recently awarded DOC officer Shannel Courtney was
a Singularybas oblongus colony with salmon pink flowers. Good spotting Shannel, and most
impressive. Perhaps you would like to share a photo with us in the journal?"

"News on the Linguella puberula in Golden Bay is that we now have managed to locate just on
600 plants this season in a circle over a mile in diameter after several days of scrub bashing.
Quite a pleasing result as no doubt we didn't find every colony."

STEVE REEKIE EMAILED, "I was up at Arthurs Pass on Sunday 2nd of November with Murray Cave
and Elizabeth Passuello photographing Kea.

Whilst we were in the village, Murray and I followed a small stream behind the Outdoor Education
Centre to a small waterfall at about 780-800m altitude. On a regrown slip, in a shady, sheltered
corner of the narrow steep sided gorge, I found a small colony of orchids, which I took from the
leaf shape to be of the Nematoceras trilobum aggregate.

Only a couple of these were in flower, and I managed to get a couple of reasonably good shots
(see photo below) using a Raynox DCR150 macro lens on my trusty Lumix FZ8. I was immediately
struck by the colour tones of the little beauty, and on my return to Greymouth, promptly accessed
the NZNOG website to try and ascertain its identity. The most similar one I could find, to my untrained eye, was N. pygmy.

I immediately wrote to Eric Scanlen for a second opinion." Eric replied, "There is indeed a resemblance but it is quite out of the June - July flowering time for N. pygmy. Thom Pendrigh put us onto a colony
at Arthurs Pass where there was leaf only on 2 Dec 2002 at the back of a parking area overlooking the famous viaduct, so it is a revelation to see, possibly the same taxon in flower in Steve's excellent photos".

What were the curious Pterostylis we found on the Sunrise hut track in the Ruahine's on 6 December, illustrated on the outside back cover?

Brian Molloy emailed (in response to my question, "Your specimen is a good fit for Pt. areolata.
No question about that.... There is variation from region to region in size and basic coloration
(see Fig 23 Johns & Molloy for a small green one). Leaf length (largest leaf) ranges from 2cm
Port Hills to 10cm, also in Port Hills but in forest not grassland.

See J99 for earlier report - Ed.

If you would like to see your photographs published in a new threatened plant book - ie, of
Anzybas carsei, Calochilus herbaceus, Linguella puberula, Plumatochilos tasmanicum, Pterostylis
micromega, P. irwinii, Thelymitra matthewsii, T. sanscilia - please email ,
by 30 Jan.