Corybas walliae
Common names
Zeller’s spider orchid
Biostatus
Native – Endemic taxon
Current conservation status
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2022-2023 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website. This report includes replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Previous assessments can be found here.
- Conservation status of vascular plants in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023. 2024. Peter J. de Lange, Jane Gosden, Shannel P. Courtney, Alexander J. Fergus, John W. Barkla, Sarah M. Beadel, Paul D. Champion, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Troy Makan and Pascale Michel Department of Conservation. Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2023 | Not Threatened
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Orchids
Simplified description
Terrestrial, seasonal orchid. Leaves solitary heart-shaped sub-oblong or sub-hastate, distinctly mucronate. Flowers solitary, mostly pale green or yellowish.
Detailed description
Terrestrial herbs, 13–34 mm tall at flowering. Leaf distinctly petiolate, petiole 5.5–28.8 mm long; lamina cordiform to sub-oblong or sub-hastate, 6.4–14.0 × 9.3–23.5 mm; margin entire; apex mucronate with mucro 0.2–2.6 mm long. Flower solitary, held erect on a peduncle 2.7–11.6 mm long, floral bract narrowly triangular to deltate when flattened, 2.6–10.0 × 1.4–3.7 mm; dorsal sepal pale yellow-green, arching over the labellum, concave to cucullate, narrow at the base and widely spathulate towards the tip and at times bearing trichomes on the upper surface, apex emarginated or rounded; lateral sepal linear-filiform, pale yellow-green, at times pale pink, 9.4–25.0 mm long; petals similar to the dorsal sepals but longer, 24.5–62.2 mm long; labellum pale green or yellowish, less often with a few blotches of pink near the upper section, auriculate at base, aperture 1.2–2.6 mm in diameter; lamina deflexed, c. 7 mm wide, with a central groove formed by the inwards folding of the lamina, extending downwards to the lower margin and sunken pit formed at the point where the lamina bends, margin incurve, mostly entire but erose at the lower margin, inner surface of the labellum covered with glandular trichomes, some also present in the outer surface. Ovary 3.0–9.0 mm long. Column 2.3 mm long, straight with deltate to shallowly deltate wings flanking the stigma.
Similar taxa
The pale flowers flowers of Corybas walliae most closely resemble those of C. vitreus but they differs from that species in having a conspicuously yellow to pale green labellum lamina and margins and by the presence of numerous glandular trichomes on the internal and external surface of the labellum. Corybas walliae also has larger leaves. Corybas walliae is best distinguished from C. trilobus by having an overall pale green to yellow flower.
Distribution
Endemic. New Zealand: North Island, South Island.
Habitat
Montane to subalpine. Found in leaf litter under southern beech (Fuscospora or Lophozonia (Nothofagaceae)) or kamahi (Pterophylla racemosa) forest, or growing in mossy seepages and gravelly soils.
Threats
Not Threatened.
Detailed taxonomy
Genus
Family
Synonyms
None - first described in 2016
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Ecology
Flowering
October–November
Fruiting
November–January
Propagation technique
Difficult—should not be removed from the wild.
Other information
Orthography notes
Lehnebach et al. (2016) described this species as Corybas wallii—a species epithet that honours a male person. However, in their protologue the etymology of the species epithet is given thus ‘this species is named after Walli (Walburga) Zeller, mother of the second author of this article’. As the person honoured is female the orthographic end should be walliae not wallii—as in Carex edgariae, Libertia edgariae—species honouring Dr Elizabeth Edgar.
Etymology
corybas: Helmet flower
walliae: Commemorating Walli (Walburga) Zeller, the mother of Andreas J. Zeller who assisted in the formal taxonomic recognition of this species.
Manaaki Whenua Online Interactive Key
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
CORWAL
Previous conservation status
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2022-2023 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website. This report includes replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Previous assessments can be found here.
- Conservation status of vascular plants in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023. 2024. Peter J. de Lange, Jane Gosden, Shannel P. Courtney, Alexander J. Fergus, John W. Barkla, Sarah M. Beadel, Paul D. Champion, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Troy Makan and Pascale Michel Department of Conservation. Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2017 | Not Threatened
Referencing and citations
References and further reading
Lehnebach CA, Zeller AJ, Frericks J, Ritchie P. 2016. Five new species of Corybas (Diurideae, Orchidaceae) endemic to New Zealand and phylogeny of the Nematoceras clade. Phytotaxa 270: 1–24. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.270.1.1.
Attribution
Fact Sheet prepared for NZPCN by P.J. de Lange (15 August 2016). Description from Lehnebach et al. (2016)