''Pterostylis roensis'', commonly known as the painted rufous greenhood or dark rustyhood is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to the

south-west The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

of Western Australia. Both flowering and non-flowering plants have a relatively large rosette of leaves. Flowering plants also have up to six green or brown to blackish flowers with translucent white panels and a dark brown, fleshy, insect-like labellum. Pterostylis roensis habit

Description

''Pterostylis roensis'' 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 a rosette of between six and eleven leaves. The leaves are long and wide. Flowering plants have a rosette at the base of the flowering stem but the leaves are usually withered by flowering time. Up to six green or brown to blackish flowers with translucent white panels and long and wide are borne on a flowering 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 form a hood or "galea" over the column with the dorsal sepal having a narrow tip long. The lateral sepals turn downwards, about the same width as the galea and suddenly taper to narrow tips long which spread apart from each other. The labellum is dark brown, thick, fleshy and insect-like, about long and wide. The "head" end of the labellum has a few short hairs and there are six to nine longer bristles on each side of the "body". Flowering occurs from September to November.

Taxonomy and naming

''Pterostylis roensis'' was first formally described in 1989 by David Jones and Mark Clements from a specimen collected south of

Norseman The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

and the description was published 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 ...

(''roensis'') refers to the Roe botanical district where this greenhood is common.

Distribution and habitat

The rufous greenhood grows in woodland, shrubland and in shallow soil on granite outcrops between Hyden and Balladonia in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie and Mallee

biogeographic regions A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. De ...

Conservation status

''Pterostylis roensis'' is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15492007 roensis Endemic orchids of Australia Orchids of Western Australia Plants described in 1989