Bill Liddy has already discovered one new native orchid - a beautiful Thelymitra that proved to grow well in cultivation, but set no seed. He found it on a track off the Taihape - Napier road, and it was tagged Thelymitra "Comet". It is probably a sterile hybrid.

At Iwitahi this year he showed photographs of another discovery from nearby: it is a 30cm Pterostylis, with a rosette of basal leaves, similar to P. foliata, but with longer lateral and dorsal sepals.

It is hard to identify from a photograph, but it looks remarkably like Pterostylis (Taurantha) ophioglossa, a New South Wales plant.

If so, it's the first of that subgenus in New Zealand.