Tag: Australian history

Caladenia plicata – April Winning Photograph

Shane Grave’s winning photograph for April was the spring flowering Caladenia plicata which is endemic to the South West of Western Australia.

Caladenia is a very large genus with over 330 species, 39 of these currently unnamed. In addition, there are 58 named subspecies and varieties. Caladenia plicata would belong under the subgenus Calonema or the segregate genus Arachnorchis which, although not generally recognised by State herbaria is commonly accepted by many amateur enthusiasts. Yet even this subdivision is still large with 192 species. As a result, some authors have created further groups/complexes, for example C. dilatata complex, C. longicauda complex, etc. However, according to Andrew Brown, C. plicata doesn’t seem to fit neatly into any of these categories, although David Jones does include it within the clubbed spider orchids.

Various authors consistently refer to the labellum as being unusual. In Fitzgerald’s formal description (1882) he states that the labellum tip is “recurved so as to become plicate and touch the under surface of the disc”. Plicate means to fold. The labellum tip of many other Arachnorchis species are known to curl under but none fold under in the way that this species does. The sharp fold with the spreading horizontal fringed margins (edges) combined with a central band of tall dense calli (wart-like structures) gives a distinctive shape reminiscence of a crab, hence the common name Crab Lipped Spider Orchid. The effect of this is best seen from a front, rather than a side, view.

The very mobile labellum is sufficient to identify this species, but it is also possible to identify when in bud “due to the prominent short osmophores (clubs) on the sepals”. The sepals narrow halfway along to form thick brown clubs and when the flower is open both the lateral sepals and petals are downswept. This is clearly seen in Shane’s photograph.

Finally, for those interested in pollination, it is pollinated by an undescribed male thynnine wasp of the genus Zeleboria. This has been captured on video https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0960982217306310-mmc6.mp4

 

Thank you to Andrew Brown for assisting me with this article.

References:

Brown A, et al, Field Guide to the Orchids of Western Australia 2013

Brown A, personal communication

Caladenia accessed 24 May 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caladenia

Caladenia plicata Wikipedia accessed 24 May 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caladenia_plicata

Haiyang Xu et al Complex Sexual Deception in an Orchid Is Achieved by Co-opting Two Independent Biosynthetic Pathways for Pollinator Attraction 2017

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982217306310

Jones DL, A Complete Guide to Native Orchids of Australia including the Island Territories 2006

Jones DL, et al, Australian Orchid Genera CD-ROM 2008 CSIRO accessed 24 May 2019

https://www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr/cd-keys/orchidkey/html/genera/Arachnorchis.htm

Pelloe, EH, West Australian Orchids 1930

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400681h.html#page50

Orchids of South-West Australia website

http://chookman.id.au/wp_orchids/?page_id=2424

 

 

2017 September Winning Picture

1709 sm JF Thelymitra x truncata

 

Natural hybrids are both fascinating and challenging. Fascinating because they don’t occur readily, (although of all the plant families, orchids have one of the greatest propensity for hybridising). Challenging because of the difficulty in determining the parents unlike the manmade hybrids where we can track which parents are being used to make the hybrid.

Obviously, the hybrid will share characteristics of both parents and this is the case of this month’s winning photograph, John Fennell’s Thelymitra x truncata. In the South Australian setting, a spotted orchid hybrid suggests that one of the parents will always be T. ixiodes/juncifolia and because it is blue it is most likely that the other parent will also be blue, from either the T. pauciflora or T. nuda complexes. This is true also for T. x merraniae. This is because there is no naturally occurring blue pigment. Whereas a pink or yellow parent and a blue parent will not produce a blue hybrid. Consider T. x chasmogama, T. x irregularis, T. x macmillanii are never blue.

Finally, it is fitting that this should be the winning photograph as this is the centenary month (September 2017) of its presentation to the Royal Society of South Australia, by Dr R S Rogers who also named this hybrid. The other hybrids entered were Jane Higgs Caladenia Harlequin and Diuris Earwig, both cultivated plants; Pauline Meyers Caladenia falcata X Drakonorchis barbarossa; John Fennell’s Caladenia x idiastes, T. x irregularis; Rickey Egels T. x macmillanii along with Lorraine Badger’s Caladenia roei hybrid and Caladenia x ericsoniae.

Reference

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/109628#page/353/mode/1up

https://nossa.org.au/2017/07/28/2017-june-winning-picture/

https://nossa.org.au/2014/09/26/thelymitra-x-irregularis-beautiful-but-only-a-hybrid/

Bates, R. J., ed. (2011). South Australian Native Orchids. Electronic version, 2011. NOSSA

Rules of entry:

The subject matter must have something to do with Australian orchids.  Any format is acceptable including Photo shopped images, artwork, etc

 

2017 August Winning Picture

The following article  appeared in the Native Orchid Society of South Australia Journal September 2017 Volume 41 Number 8. It is a longer and expanded version of the article as  George Bentham was one of most influential botanists of the 19th century making it difficult to summarize his life. Even this article barely scratches the surface of this most interesting man.

The theme for the August competition was Striped or Blotched orchids.

1708 JF Thelymitra benthamiana cr

Blotches or stripes, which one? An interesting collection was entered. Representing the stripes were John Fennell’s Dipodium pardalinum, Shane Grave’s Cyrtostylis robusta labellum, Helen Lawrence’s Thelymitra cyanea, Robert Lawrence’s Diplodium dolichochilum and Lorraine Badger’s T. campanulata. There were less blotches; Ricky Egel’s Diuris pardina and John Fennell’s T. benthamiana.

T. benthamiana (Leopard Sun Orchid) is a popular orchid to photograph and it is not surprising that it is again (see April 2016) a winner in our competition. It was named after the Englishman George Bentham (1800 – 1884) one of the foremost and influential systemic botanists of the 19th century. At about the age of 16 or 17 years he was introduced to botany, and despite training as a lawyer, he devoted his life to the study of botany.

Though never visiting Australia, he produced the world’s first completed continental flora, Flora Australiensis, a seven volume work produced over 15 years (1863 – 1878). As monumental as this was, at the same time he was working on his greatest work, co-authored with Joseph Dalton Hooker, Genera Plantarum (1862 – 1883) in which is introduced the Bentham & Hooker system of plant classification. This system is still in use by many herbaria around the world. It involved the study of actual plant specimens, a practice which Bentham used himself. For instance, in the production Flora Australiensis, he would examine, critique and describe over a 1,000 species each year.

This practice harkens back to his early days when in his Flora of the French Pyrenees (1826) he adopted the practice of citing nothing second-hand. He never deviated from this. It did help that he was able to read in fourteen modern European languages plus having a good command of Latin, the language used for many botanical writings. This enabled him to access original material which he did by visiting every European herbarium when preparing for his first major work Labiatarum Genera et Species (1832 – 1836).

A shy and unassuming man, Bentham had the respect of the botanical world as was reflected in the various awards he received. Described as a genius, [a man of] indefatigable industry, the premier systematic botanist, he considered himself an amateur botanist, never a professional, even though he donated his extensive collection of more than 1,000 specimens to Kew Gardens in 1854 where he worked full time until his death in 1884. Bentham lived in, and contributed to, the transitional period from the dominance of the gentleman botanist to the government being responsible for collections of national and scientific significance.

He was responsible for introducing into orchid taxonomy (1881) a new classification recognising Subtribes, which precedes Genus in the classification system; introduced the word ‘orchidologist’ to the world in his Notes on Orchideae, 1881. Although there is only one Australian orchid named after Bentham, he has a whole genus of 29 species named after him: Benthamia which is endemic to Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion. Worldwide, Bentham was directly involved in naming over 200 orchid taxa.

Thanks to Greg Steenbeeke for critiquing this article.

Reference

N. T. Burbidge, ‘Bentham, George (1800–1884)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bentham-george-2979/text4345 , published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online 29 August 2017.

George Bentham Retrieved August 31, 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bentham

The Taxonomy of the Orchidaceae Retrieved 31 August 2017 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_of_the_Orchidaceae

Bentham, George (DNB00). (2012, December 29). In Wikisource. Retrieved August 31, 2017, from https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Bentham,_George_(DNB00)&oldid=4211195

Bentham and Hooker system of Classification. Accessed August 31, 2017 from http://vle.du.ac.in/mod/book/print.php?id=13270&chapterid=29150

Notes on Orchidaea (Journal of the Linnean Society)

English Oxford Living Dictionary. Accessed 31 August, 2017 from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/orchidologist

 

Gleanings from the Journals: Dockrillia linguiformis 2006

This week’s blog is an extract from Volume 30 No 10 November 2006.  In this article of Len Field he gives not only cultural notes but also some interesting background including an orchid link with the infamous Captain Bligh.

Dockrillia linguiformis (Sw) 1800 Brieger

Dockrilla linguiformis
Dockrilla linguiformis

Len Field
Common names Thumbnail orchid, Tongue orchid, and in North Queensland the Tick
orchid.
The name linguiforme is from the Latin lingu(a) as in linguiforme (a tongue). It was also claimed for many years that this was the orchid that Olaf Peter Swartz the German botanist founded the genus Dendrobium in 1800, but this was wrong, although this was the first orchid seen by white man when they landed at the rocks area in Sydney cove, Port Jackson.  It was introduced into England by Rear Admiral Bligh of Bounty fame.
Other names it has been called are
Dendrobium linguiforme var. linguiforme Swartze 1800
Callista linguiforme (Swartze) Rev. Kuntze 1891
Dendrobium linguiforme (Swartze) var. huntianum Rupp 1942
There was another variety named from this species called var. huntianum by Rupp in 1942, which was named after T.E. Hunt and is a June or July flower and found near Ipswitch (sic) in Queensland, but as it reverts to type form it never reached true variety status and was considered just a variation of the type form.
This orchid has a huge range of habitat which stretches from almost the Victorian border up to North Queensland and West to the Great Dividing Range. It is very common throughout this area and equally happy as an epiphyte or a lithophyte but where as a epiphyte it likes swamp oaks (Casuarina glauca), river oaks (Casuarina cunninghamiana), in fact it will grow on most trees that will hold there bark including the tea trees (Leptospermum species).  I have seen this orchid hundreds of kilometres inland from the coast still forming large mats on the rock faces, while in its more prolific growing areas these mats will cover huge areas of the rocks where it can survive and grow in extreme exposed conditions that would kill other orchids. In the dry times the leaves which are very thick, tough and numerous will shrivel and can last up to six months without water. This is a feature of a lot of Australian Dendrobium and Dockrillia
Flowering is from August to October with blooms that are long lasting, up to two weeks with one raceme per leaf.
Culture. If grown on slabs which is the usual way it should be hung up high and if grown in pots a very coarse open mix. In nature it likes plenty of sunlight although at times it will grow in shade. Whichever way it is grown it should have good light, humidity and air movement.

Den linguiforme drawing
Dendrobium linguiforme


The Grace and Charm of Fitzgerald’s Orchids

Orchids have fascinated people over the generations.  Robert Fitzgerald was one of them.  He had a lasting influence upon Australian orchids.  This extract from the Brisbane Courier Saturday 27 September 1930 Page 20 gives a brief biography of him.  The author of the article is Estelle Thomson.

 

Original article from the Brisbane Courier, Saturday 27 September 1930
Original article from the Brisbane Courier, Saturday 27 September 1930

Great Australian Botanists

III. – R. D. FITZGERALD

In 1830 Robert Desmond Fitzgerald was born at Tralee, in Ireland.  When he was a young man of about 26 he came to Sydney and entered the surveyor-General’s office as a draughtsman; he became Deputy Surveyor-General, and held that post till he retired in 1887 to devote the rest of his life to his great work, the study of Australian orchids.  He travelled all over the Commonwealth and made innumerable drawings and paintings of orchids.  He drew always from the living plant (rather an exception in his day when the dried specimen was often used, even when fresh plants were available), and his drawings have grace and charm and also an unmistakable individual style.

His work was published in several huge folio volumes, called “Australian Orchids,” and in these he figures and describes over 200 species.  As well as making the original drawing in colour, he made the lithographic plates for a number of the reproductions.

He kept no dried specimens, and so left no herbarium on his death (at Hunter’s Hill, Sydney, in 1892), and this is to be regretted, as he described and named a number of new species, and the type (the original specimen) not being available it is sometimes difficult to determine whether other specimens are true to this type, or variations, or actually different species.

An 1888 reprint of one of his many prints. The species featured are Caleana major (Flying Duck Orchid) and Paracaleana minor (Little Duck Orchid)
An 1888 reprint of one of his many prints. The species featured are Caleana major (Flying Duck Orchid) and Paracaleana minor (Little Duck Orchid)

 

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 18 of 20

Colin Ledward (1903 – 1963)

A general medical practitioner of Cloncurry and Canungra (Queensland); the orchid that bears his name was collected from a single colony discovered in 1934 and is now almost certainly extinct.

Orchid

Acianthus fornicatus (= Acianthus ledwardii)

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 19 of 20

Arthur George Harrold (1918 – 2012)

A navy surgeon who later worked as general medical practitioner, ecologist and conservationist in Noosa (Queensland), and graduate of the University of Cambridge; he formed the Noosa Parks Association in 1962 and helped establish the Cooloola National Park.

Orchid

Habenaria harroldii

Named in recent years, so there is only general information on the genus, Habenaria

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 17 of 20

Hugo Flecker (1884 – 1957)

A pioneer Australian radiotherapist, radiologist, general medical practitioner and toxicologist of Cairns (Queensland) who dug his own radioactive ore at Radium Hill (South Australia), a medical graduate from the University of Sydney, and a natural historian; his life and works are commemorated by the Flecker Botanic Gardens in Cairns.

Orchids

Cestichis fleckeri (= Liparis fleckeri) Slender Sphinx Orchid

Thelychiton fleckeri (= Dendrobium fleckeri) Apricot Cane Orchid

Australian Orchids & the Doctors They Commemorate Part 16 of 20

Hereward Leighton Kesteven (1881 – 1964)

A general medical practitioner, medical scientist, zoologist, pioneer of industrial medicine in Australia, and national medical director of the Allied Works Council during World War II.

Orchids

Dendrobium kestevenii  is the name applied to the hybrid between D. speciosum subsp. speciosum and D. kingianum

Australian Orchids & the Doctors they Commemorate Part 13 of 20

Thomas Lane Bancroft (1860 – 1933) son and Joseph Bancroft (1836 -1894)  father

Thomas Lane Bancroft is one of Australia’s greatest doctor-naturalists; he elucidated the life cycle of the lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri

Orchid Species

Sarcochilus dilatatus (= Sacrcochilus bancroftii) Brown Butterfly Orchid

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