Orthoceras novae-zeelandiae

Detailed description

Terrestrial, usually solitary, glabrous, perennial tuberous herb. Plant at flowering up to 900 mm tall. Tuber up to 50 × 10 mm ovoid, ovoid-ellipsoid. Stem fleshy dark green, red-green, to brown-green, stiffly erect, rather wiry, axis of raceme usually flexuous. Leaves fleshy, suberect to spreading, 10–20 × 3–6 mm, dark green, dark red-green to brown-green, basal third closely sheathing, linear-lanceolate to linear, channelled, apex acute. Inflorescence racemose up to 200 mm long, 2–12-flowered. Flowers more or less equidistant subtended by closely sheathing leaf-like bracts. Perianth colour variable, mostly green or red-green, sometimes greenish-yellow. Dorsal sepal uppermost, 10–15 × 9–14 mm, very broad, and arched over column, distinctly cucullate and deeply concave, subacute; lateral sepals 20–50 mm long, 0.5 mm diameter, narrow-linear, semi-terete, channelled, erect to divergent. Petals very short, narrow-oblong, flat, apex mostly notched, occasionally entire, more or less hidden under dorsal sepal. Labellum spreading, deflexed, firmly fleshy to almost coriaceous, green, red-green, yellow or black, trilobed, margins smooth, lateral lobes broad, oblique; mid-lobe larger, ovate; median callus yellow, restricted to near base, shortly conical with a thickened inturned, rounded apex, base of mid-lobe usually bearing two small calli. Column short, column-wings present as two lateral, linear processes, more or less papillose, almost as long as anther. Anther dorsal, taller than stigma, pollinia ill-defined, pollen granular. Stigma disc-shaped; rostellum prominent, acute.