''Pterostylis parca'' commonly known as the Lithgow leafy greenhood is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to New South Wales. Non-flowering plants have a rosette of leaves on a short stalk. Flowering plants lack a rosette but have up to eight translucent pale green flowers on a flowering stem with three to six stem leaves.

Description

''Pterostylis parca'', 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 four narrow egg-shaped leaves, each leaf long and wide on a stalk high. Flowering plants have up to eight translucent pale green flowers on a flowering spike high. The flowering spike has between five and seven stem leaves which are long and wide. The flowers are long, wide. 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 with the dorsal sepal having a brown tip. The lateral sepals turn downwards and are long, wide and joined to each other for more than half their length. The labellum is about long, wide, reddish-brown and hairy with a dark stripe along its mid-line. Flowering occurs from August to October.

Taxonomy and naming

The Lithgow leafy greenhood was first formally described in 2006 by David Jones who gave it the name ''Bunochilus parcus'' and published the description in ''Australian Orchid Research'' from a specimen collected near Lithgow. In 2010,

Gary Backhouse Gary may refer to: *Gary (given name), a common masculine given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name *Gary, Indiana, the largest city named Gary Places ;Iran * Gary, Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province ;Uni ...

changed the name to ''Pterostylis parca''. 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 ...

(''parca'') is a Latin word meaning "frugal", "scanty", "thrifty" or "penurious", referring to the small labellum of this species.

Distribution and habitat

''Pterostylis parca'' grows in moist places in forest in the Lithgow and Bathurst areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17329288 parca Orchids of New South Wales Plants described in 2006