Pterostylis praetermissa
Pterostylis praetermissa, commonly known as the Mount Kaputar rustyhood is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to New South Wales. It has a rosette of leaves and up to nine relatively small greenish and reddish-brown flowers with transparent "windows" and a reddish-brown, insect-like labellum.
Description
Pterostylis praetermissa is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, herb with an underground tuber. It has a rosette of between five and eight leaves, each leaf long and wide. Flowering plants have a rosette at the base and up to eight greenish and reddish-brown flowers with transparent panels and which are long and wide on a flowering stem tall. There are between two and five stem leaves with their bases loosely wrapped around the flowering stem. The dorsal sepal and petals form a hood called the "galea" over the column with the dorsal sepal having a narrow point long. The lateral sepals turn downwards, about the same width as the galea and have thread-like tips long. The labellum is almost flat, reddish-brown, fleshy and insect-like, about long and wide. The "head" end has many short hairs and there are between twelve and fifteen longer hairs on each side of the body. Flowering occurs from September to October.
Taxonomy and naming
Pterostylis praetermissa was first formally described in 1989 by David Jones and Mark Clements from a specimen collected from near the Mount Kaputar National Park and published the description in Australian Orchid Research. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin words praeter meaning "beyond", "past" or "more than" and missus meaning "sent".
Distribution and habitat
The Mount Kaputar rustyhood occurs in isolated populations on forest slopes and rocky ridges between Mount Kaputar and Barrington Tops.