''Pterostylis jonesii'', commonly known as the montane leafy greenhood, is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to a small area of south-eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Individual plants have either a rosette of three to six leaves or a flowering spike with up to eleven flowers and five to seven stem leaves. The flowers are translucent green with faint darker green lines and have a brownish-yellow labellum with a dark stripe.

Description

''Pterostylis jonesii'', 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. Non-flowering plants have a rosette of between three and six narrow egg-shaped leaves, each leaf long and wide. Flowering plants have up to twenty translucent green flowers with faint darker lines on a flowering spike high. The flowering spike has between five and seven stem leaves which are long and wide. The flowers are long and 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 joined to form a hood over the column. The lateral sepals turn downwards and are long, wide and joined to each other for about half their length then taper to orange-brown tips. The labellum is about long, wide, brownish-yellow, covered with hair-like cells and with a dark stripe along its mid-line. Flowering occurs from August to November.

Taxonomy and naming

This greenhood was first formally described in 2006 by David Jones who gave it the name ''Bunochilus montanus'' and published the description in ''Australian Orchid Research''. In 2007 Gary Backhouse changed the name to ''Pterostylis jonesii'', rather than ''Pterostylis montana'' because that name was already in use for a New Zealand endemic. 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 ...

(''jonesii'') honours David Jones who published the original description.

Distribution and habitat

The montane leafy greenhood is only known from forest in the higher areas of north-eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15491792 jonesii Orchids of New South Wales Orchids of Victoria (Australia) Endemic orchids of Australia Plants described in 2006