New Zealand Native Orchids
 
 
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Chiloglottis formicifera
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Plant: stem to 8cm tall, leaf margins distinctly wavy

Flowers: reddish or green with a pale column. Labellum with dark hairy tubercles reaching the tip of midlobe, mimicking a female wasp.

Flowering: September.

Habitat: known only from near Kaitaia over a century ago.

Conservation: vagrant from Australia, now thought to be extinct in NZ.

Notes: photographs are of Australian plants.

Key features: labellum appearing to hold a wasp.