New Zealand Native Orchids
 
 
Gastrodia longcolumn
 

 

Gastrodia molloyi
Potato Orchid
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Plant: to 80 cm with up to 50 flowers.

Flowers: knobbly yellow to yellow green tubular labellum heavily marked greenish brown to almost black. Column long, showing beneath the yellow tipped labellum. Some smell of freesias.

Flowering: December to February.

Habitat: wide range of disturbed vegetation. Throughout.

Conservation: none.

Notes: almost a mix of characters of G. cunninghamii and G. sesamoides but yellowish. Distinguished from the former by its long column and the latter by warts on the flower exterior. Often more robust than either. Was tagged G. “long column”.

Key features: knobbly yellow to greenish flowers and long, yellow column with pollinia visible at the mouth of the tube.