Corybas cryptanthus

Detailed description

Saprophytic, rhizomatous, subterranean, orchid lacking chlorophyll and flowering usually buried within leaf litter, only rarely with flowers exposed. Fruiting stem greatly elongated, exposed and held well above the ground. Rhizomes, stems, and flowers hyaline white, usually flecked with red, purple or brown, rarely without any colour. Tubers scarcely evident, minute, globose, partially obscured by leaf-scales. Rhizomes horizontal, extensive, succulent, without roots, frequently and laxly branched, buried within leaf mould and litter, up to 1 mm diameter and 100–120 mm long. Leaves reduced to minute deltoid scales spaced at about 10 mm intervals along rhizome, the one at the base of the flower stem usually broadly ovate and larger. Flowers solitary. Floral bract > to » ovary. Perianth usually hyaline white to pale pink, more or less streaked with red or purple, sometimes completely white. Dorsal sepal 10–14 mm long, narrow-lanceolate, acuminate; lateral sepals longer than dorsal sepal and labellum, filiform, often protruding from leaf litter. Petals similar to lateral sepals but distinctly shorter. Labellum up to 15 mm long, auriculate at base, the margins meeting behind the column and touching for about half the labellum length, central portion much thickened and papillose, the distal portion greatly expanded, more or less deflexed, usually not abruptly but sometimes so, with the free margin upturned, coarsely and abundantly laciniate, laciniae sometimes branched, margins finely ciliate. Fruiting capsule ovoid, hyaline, flecked with red or purple; terminal on a greatly expanded, erect stem up to 280 mm tall; capsule initially down-turned, at maturity either horizontal or erect.