Rhizanthella gardneri
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| iRhizanthella gardneri Conservation status: Critical |
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| Rhizanthella gardneri |
Rhizanthella gardneri, also known as The Underground Orchid, was discovered in the spring of 1928 in Western Australia, by a farmer who lived in the wheatbelt named Jack Trott. He had bent down to investigate an odd crack that had appeared in his garden's soil. He immediately noticed a sweet smell that arose from the ground. Scraping away the soil, he soon uncovered a tiny white flower, about half an inch across, growing underground. What he had found was an entirely new type of orchid.
The leafless plant is made up of a tube which produces a flowerhead surrounded by a white and purple wax which protects the flowers inside. The Western Australian underground orchid, unlike any other Australian species, remains completely underground for its whole life. Not being able to obtain the sun's energy, it instead feeds off decaying stumps of the broom honey myrtle, a shrub. It is linked to the stumps by a fungus named Rhizoctonia.
This particular orchid is a myco-heterotroph as it is achlorophyllous and therefore relies completely on the Melaleuca uncinata and a mycorrhiza fungus for its nutrients and carbon dioxide. Having received this from the fungus the plant is than able to make the water, nutrients and carbon dioxide into energy which is used to grow and repair cells.
The flowering head will bloom in May and June and measures 2.5–3 cm. The flower head contains approximately 120 small black flowers.
Rhizanthella gardneri reproduces vegetatively which can produce three daughter plants, as well as sexually. In the latter case termites will polinate the flower, and the fruit of their labour will then take six months to mature. After this period of time the fruit will decompose leaving the seed to grow.
Fewer than 250 specimens have been identified in all of Western Australia.
