Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia

© 2018 Magnolia Press. Few plants are so cryptic as the underground orchids, Rhizanthella Rogers (1928: 1), of Australia. Unlike the species on the eastern seaboard of Australia, the Western Australian species spend their entire life cycle, including flowering, below the soil surface (only rarely wi...

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Main Authors: Dixon, Kingsley, Christenhusz, Maarten
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/66393
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author Dixon, Kingsley
Christenhusz, Maarten
author_facet Dixon, Kingsley
Christenhusz, Maarten
author_sort Dixon, Kingsley
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2018 Magnolia Press. Few plants are so cryptic as the underground orchids, Rhizanthella Rogers (1928: 1), of Australia. Unlike the species on the eastern seaboard of Australia, the Western Australian species spend their entire life cycle, including flowering, below the soil surface (only rarely with the tips of the bracts showing), making them unique among orchids and indeed, among flowering plants generally (Brown et al. 2013). Discovery in 1928 of the first underground orchid in Western Australia was an international sensation where the plant was described as ‘a remarkable subterranean orchid’ (Wilson 1929). The new taxon described in this paper resolves the enigmatic, disjunct distribution of Rhizanthella in Western Australia, where there was thought to be a central and southern node of a single species, R. gardneri Rogers (1928: 1).
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-663932018-04-30T02:49:02Z Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia Dixon, Kingsley Christenhusz, Maarten © 2018 Magnolia Press. Few plants are so cryptic as the underground orchids, Rhizanthella Rogers (1928: 1), of Australia. Unlike the species on the eastern seaboard of Australia, the Western Australian species spend their entire life cycle, including flowering, below the soil surface (only rarely with the tips of the bracts showing), making them unique among orchids and indeed, among flowering plants generally (Brown et al. 2013). Discovery in 1928 of the first underground orchid in Western Australia was an international sensation where the plant was described as ‘a remarkable subterranean orchid’ (Wilson 1929). The new taxon described in this paper resolves the enigmatic, disjunct distribution of Rhizanthella in Western Australia, where there was thought to be a central and southern node of a single species, R. gardneri Rogers (1928: 1). 2018 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/66393 10.11646/phytotaxa.334.1.12 restricted
spellingShingle Dixon, Kingsley
Christenhusz, Maarten
Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia
title Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia
title_full Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia
title_fullStr Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia
title_full_unstemmed Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia
title_short Flowering in darkness: A new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from Western Australia
title_sort flowering in darkness: a new species of subterranean orchid rhizanthella (orchidaceae; orchidoideae; diurideae) from western australia
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/66393