Favoritos de riccardo80

Plants growing under Melaleuca uncinata. Flowers are completely underground except for a ring of bracts pushing above the ground and leaf litter under the trees. Tiny flies were observed leaving the flower.

Flowers were gently excavated, bracts eased open. After photos were taken, the bracts were closed, sand and leaf litter repositioned around flower.

Very few of these plants are observed and classed as Threatened Flora (Declared Rare Flora — Extant).

Unfortunately during 1988 a wildfire burnt the area and the orchids have not been relocated at this location.

Longwood Gardens, naturalized in a woodland.

Fruit photos taken in September 2019. The infructescences were so heavy they fell over.

SEM seed images were obtained with the assistance of Kyle Nowlin at the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, Greensboro, NC, USA.

Light microscope seed photos were obtained in February 2020, with the assistance of Mark Garland, USDA NRCS. Scale bar = 1 mm.