Gastrodia cunninghamii

Detailed description

Terrestrial, saprophytic, deciduous, fleshy, perennial herb lacking chlorophyll. Plant at flowering up to 1.4 m tall. Rhizome mycorrhizal, tuberous, rather swollen, short-lived, extensively branched, individual sections up to 250 x 50 mm, dull pale brown to brownish-black, often covered in chartaceous scales and scale-leaves, especially toward the active apex. Stem 4–10 mm diameter, dark brown to brown-black with lighter brown coloured, small spots, erect, stout or slender, rather brittle when fresh. Scale leaves widely spaced, chartaceous. Flowers up to 100, unscented, erect to pendulous (rarely with the flower touching the stem axis), tuberculate, tubercules paler in colour. Perianth 14–20 × 4–6 mm, brownish, brownish-black, or greenish; lobes slightly thickened toward margins. Lateral sepals fused slightly above the gibbous base but with their margins lying close together, often more or less overlapping. Labellum 10 × 4 mm, white or cream, membranous, not irritable, completely enclosed within floral tube (apex just visible), oblong, trilobed, base thickened, twisted and fused for most of length of perianth-tube, lateral-lobes with upturned, irregular, crenate-cristate, margins; mid-lobe yellowish with flat but irregular margins, bearing several long median, cristate, yellowish calli, apex black or brown. Column much shorter than labellum, wing minute, present as a more or less curved process; anther terminal, erect and bending forwards, short and broad, operculate, filament transversely pleated at the back, pollen breaking into angular granules; stigma basal, immediately below anther, broadly ellipsoid, hollow; rostellum flap-like, positioned under anther.