''Pterostylis hians'', commonly known as the opera house greenhood, is a species of orchid endemic to New South Wales. Non-flowering plants have a rosette of leaves flat on the ground but flowering plants have a single shiny white and green flower. This greenhood is only known from a single location near

Ulladulla Ulladulla is a coastal town in New South Wales, Australia in the City of Shoalhaven local government area. It is on the Princes Highway about south of Sydney, halfway between Batemans Bay to the south and Nowra to the north. Ulladulla has cl ...

Description

''Pterostylis hians'' is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous,

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal ...

with an underground tuber and when not flowering, a rosette of dark green, more or less round leaves, each leaf long and wide. Flowering plants have a single bright green and white flower long and wide on a stem tall. The dorsal sepal and

petal Petals are modified Leaf, leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often advertising coloration, brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''c ...

s are fused, forming a hood or "galea" over the

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

and the dorsal sepal has a short, sharply pointed tip. The lateral sepals are held closely against the galea, have erect thread-like tips long and a protruding, platform-like sinus between their bases. The labellum is about long and wide, just visible above the sinus. Flowering occurs from March to May.

Taxonomy and naming

''Pterostylis hians'' was first formally described in 1997 by David Jones from a specimen collected near

Manyana Manyana is a small town on the South Coast, New South Wales, South Coast of New South Wales, Australia in the City of Shoalhaven. At the , it had a population of 521. Manyana borders with Bendalong and Cunjurong Point. Notes and references < ...

and the description was published in ''The Orchadian''. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''hians'') is a Latin word meaning "gaping" or "yawning".

Distribution and habitat

The opera house greenhood grows in shrubby forest in a small area near Ulladulla.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15494830 hians Endemic orchids of Australia Orchids of New South Wales Plants described in 1997