A few more photos of the Bird Orchid.

A few more photos of the Bird Orchid which I took with Chris from the Australasian Native Orchid Society (Illawarra Branch) today. Chris came down from Helensburgh to see these plants, and Colin and Mischa are going to come from Melbourne soon, too, to see both lots of plants.
Chris and I first went to see the Pterostylis hildae (Rainforest Greenhood) on Macquarie Pass. I was pleased to note that there are many buds still coming on. I did look at some other Chiloglottis leaves down there, but one which I had been following (with very large leaves) had been nibbled off, as its bud developed. Bugger. How can a Wallaby know to pick out the particular Orchid bud which is likely to be of special interest, as the one to eat? It ain't fair!

The good news was that when Chris and I moved across to the Budderoo Plateau, we found a Bird Orchid flower which was just a bud last week. Great.

Wollongong Bird Orchid, Simpliglottis chlorantha (Chiloglottis chlorantha)

At least this one was out in the open, not underneath a low-growing Banksia bush like last week's plant. You can see the oval-shaped leaves, the short stem, and the relatively large flower, compared to other members of the Chiloglottis group.

Labellum - cropped.

One group I am looking forward to photographing is this pair of buds, which conveniently look as if the flowers will be facing eachother. That should be a nice image when these buds open.
Then we went to look at and sniff the aroma of the Leucopogons. While doing that, we found a whole heap more of the Bird Orchids. So I left them for another day's photographing.