Diuris punctata
Sm.Flowering plant usually 25–60 cm tall, slender to moderately stout. Leaves 1–4, usually 2, linear, channelled, 5–30 cm long. Flowers 1–10, erect, mauve or purple, often with darker suffusions, sometimes fragrant; pedicel (excluding ovary) 2–5 cm long, mostly enclosed within bract; dorsal sepal erect, broadly ovate, 12–25 mm long; lateral sepals deflexed, usually parallel, narrow-linear, greatly exceeding petals, 30–60 mm long; petals obliquely erect, ovate to elliptic, tapering to base or distinctly clawed, 13–25 mm long. Labellum 3-lobed from base, 12–18 mm long; lateral lobes erect, about half as long as mid-lobe, oblong, margins entire; mid-lobe keeled, shortly clawed, broadly fan-shaped to wedge-shaped, margins irregular, with 2 longitudinal yellow ridges from the base ending in tooth-like processes around midway along lamina. Column narrowly winged. Flowers Oct.-Nov.
Wim, VVP, VRiv, MuF, GipP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT, NIS, EGL, EGU, HSF, HNF. Wim, VVP, VRiv, MuF, GipP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT, NIS, EGL, EGU, HSF, HNF. Formerly widespread and common in Victoria, occurring in the open forests, woodlands and grasslands of the fertile lowlands, now much reduced through clearing for agriculture and restricted to relatively few, isolated sites, but sometimes locally abundant.
Diuris punctata is a polymorphic species requiring a comprehensive molecular and morphological study across the extent of its range. Although previously including up to seven infraspecific taxa, no varieties of D. punctata are currently accepted (although some entities formerly included in D. punctata have been raised to species level). The last remaining variety that was still recognised was D. punctata var. sulfurea from New South Wales, which is now regarded as being a natural hybrid between Diuris chrysantha D.L.Jones & M.A.Clem. and one of several species of purple-flowered Diuris that occur on the New England Tableland. Jones (2018) states that he gave the hybrid the name Diuris ×sulfurella to remove earlier connection with D. punctata to which it apparently bears little resemblance.
A later flowering taxon similar to Diuris punctata but with white and pale mauve flowers, D. sp. aff. dendrobioides (Bairnsdale), is known from Gippsland.
A natural hybrid between Diuris punctata and D. chryseopsis has been reported from near Wangaratta (and New South Wales).
Jones, D.L. (2018). Two new combinations in Australian Orchidaceae. Australian Orchid Review 83(2): 63
Jones, D.L. (2024, revised 3rd edn). A complete guide to the native orchids of Australia. Reed New Holland Publishers.
Spinning
