Journal Number 113
August 2009

Notes etc

WORDS DARWIN DIDN'T SAY: Darwin wrote about natural selection, the process by which
favourable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of
reproducing organisms, and unfavourable heritable traits become less common; he compared
it to artificial selection, when man breeds plants or animals for specific characters.

It was not Darwin but Tennyson who wrote,

Man...
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law -
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed.

... and others (not Darwin) who used the phrase to describe evolutionary competition.

Evolution is a word applied to Darwinism by Herbert Spencer, who was described by the great
Darwin scholar Stephen Jay Gould as a "pundit of nearly everything". Spencer also coined the
phrase survival of the fittest.

DARWIN DID WRITE, "I have seen more than once a minute Thrips, with pollen adhering to its
body, fly from one flower to another of the same kind; and one was observed by me crawling
about within a convolvulus with four grains of pollen adhering to its head, which were deposited
on the stigma" (The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom).

PETER DE LANGE EMAILED (20 April), "Here is Pterostylis silvicultrix - as you commonly see
it on the Chatham Islands (Cover & Figs 18, 19). In forest - not epiphytic either.
It often grows with P. banksii.

This image is from Rangiauria (Pitt I.), Ellen Elizabeth Preece Conservation Covenant
(known widely as "Caravan Bush").

		We also saw P. auriculata from Caravan Bush. It is not common there and we didn't notice it anywhere else".
Pterostylis auriculata

		JOHN TERRY TOOK THE PHOTO of Orthoceras in the Catchpool on Sat 14 March (sorry for poor quality, he wrote). That's late for 0. novae-zelandiae, even when large with child as this one is - Ed

VONNIE CAVE EMAILED (14 April), "I thought you could be interested in the group of Pterostylis
(Fig.22) found on a visit to native bush in the Hollyford Valley during January this year.

It was my first visit to that area and was raining of course and by the time these plants were found
was really hosing down and cameras should have been packed away.

The shots I took aren't good - lack of light etc - and reduced for email will look even worse but
I thought that you might know whether this is a common form of Pterostylis for the area."

Figure 22

It looks like Pterostylis aff montana unzipped - a "trident" form, with its lateral petals unattached
to its dorsal sepal (the whole colony looks the same) - Ed.

FIGS 23-25 SHOW PHOTOGRAPHS by June Niejalke of the Thelymitra matthewsii from South Australia detailed in Aussie Notes in the last issue.

Note the clear mauve of the column - a different shade form from ours.

KEVEN MATTHEWS EMAILED (2 May 09), "I took this (Fig. 26) today for your insect orchid collection... rather a fatal attraction. You can still see the remains of the white abdomen spots
familiar to the Lissopimpla excelsa also known as the Orchid Dupe.

I couldn't work out how he became trapped because he should have approached the labellum
from the underside with head pointing out; maybe he got confused and died happy anyhow.

I've never been able to catch an Orchid Dupe on a Crypotstylis subulata so I was rather pleased
to stumble across this captive specimen in the Kaimaumau wetland."

Figure 26

		GEORGINA UPSON OPINED (email 5 May 09), "Pat Enright's pale Pterostylis [Fig. 28 J112] is likely to be a Pterostylis irsoniana of the pallid stargazing fraternity. Rarely seen but I have attached a pic for you to see one that I found in the Baton area."   Hmmm. I'm not convinced - Ed