Thismia rodwayi

Features

Saprophytic, reddish, pinkish or pinkish-white glabrous plant growing within deep leaf litter. Roots sparse, 1-1.5 mm diameter, branching at 10-20 mm intervals, with each fork producing an unbranched erect set 5-20 mm long. Scale leaves sparse, ovate, acute with the largest three just below flower, these 5 x 2 mm. Flower up to 20 mm long, solitary, terminal red, red-orange rarely white with orange striping. Perianth-tube 10 x 8 mm, turbinate, translucent; outer lobes 4 x 1 mm, narrow-triangular, erect or reflexed; inner lobes 4-5 x 2.5 mm, arching inwards and firmly connate above to form a mitre with broad fenestrae in its sides, the projecting keel of the inner lobe produced into a free appendage that varies in length. Stamens pendent from short, usually red annulus; free filaments short, incurved; anthers broader and connate into a pale tube that reaches halfway down perianth-tube; pollen sacs small, widely separated; connectives delicately membranous and elaborately lobed. Nectaries 6, below anthers, each lying on the line of junction of 2 adjacent connectives and enclosed within a membranous pouch. Ovary short-turbinate, 1.5 x 2 mm, upper surface concave; style stout, 1 mm.; stigmas truncate-obovate, bilobed; ovules with long funicles, crowded on stalked placentae. Fruit fleshy, the upper portion becoming chartaceous and transparent at maturity to expose numerous brown seeds.