Blotched hyacinth orchid facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Blotched hyacinth orchid |
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| Dipodium punctatum in Bournda National Park | |
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Dipodium
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| Species: |
punctatum
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The Blotched Hyacinth Orchid (scientific name: Dipodium punctatum) is a special type of orchid. It grows naturally in eastern and south-eastern Australia. This orchid is unique because it doesn't have leaves.
In summer, it grows a tall stem with many flowers. These flowers are usually pale to bright pink. They have cool red blotches, like spots or marks. People sometimes confuse it with another orchid called the Rosy hyacinth-orchid.
What Does It Look Like?
The Blotched Hyacinth Orchid is a plant that grows from a tuber (like a small underground storage part). It is a perennial herb, meaning it lives for more than two years. This orchid is also mycoheterotrophic. This means it gets its food from fungi in the soil, instead of making it through photosynthesis like most plants.
It grows a tall flowering stem that can be from 40 to 100 centimetres (about 16 to 39 inches) tall. This stem can be green or almost black. It looks a bit like a hyacinth flower stem.
Each stem can have between five and sixty flowers. The flowers are pale to bright pink with strong red blotches. They are about 20 to 25 millimetres (about 0.8 to 1 inch) wide.
The flower parts, called sepals and petals, are long and narrow. They are 10 to 20 millimetres (about 0.4 to 0.8 inches) long. Their tips sometimes curve slightly backward. The special lower petal, called the labellum, is 12 to 16 millimetres (about 0.5 to 0.6 inches) long. It has three parts, or lobes. The middle lobe has a band of pink to purple hairs. This band is narrow at the bottom and gets wider towards the tip.
You can see these orchids flowering from November to March.
How It Got Its Name
This orchid was first officially described in 1804. An English botanist named James Edward Smith gave it the name Dendrobium punctatum.
Later, in 1810, a Scottish botanist named Robert Brown moved the species to a new group (genus) he had just described, called Dipodium.
The second part of its scientific name, punctatum, comes from a Latin word. Punctum means "little hole," "dot," or "point." This probably refers to the blotches or spots on its flowers.
Where It Grows
The Blotched Hyacinth Orchid is common in forests and woodlands. You can find it along the coast and mountain ranges of New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, and Queensland. It also grows widely in Victoria, especially in the eastern part of the state. There are also a few records of it in the very south-east corner of South Australia.
This orchid does not grow in Tasmania. Orchids found there that were once thought to be D. punctatum are now known to be the Rosy hyacinth-orchid (D. roseum).
In South Australia, D. punctatum is listed as endangered. This means it is at risk of disappearing from that area.
