''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 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. 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

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 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 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 ...

(''praetermissa'') 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.

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15493553 praetermissa Endemic orchids of Australia Orchids of New South Wales Plants described in 1989