Kangaloon Sun Orchid - an endemic rare plant

This is the famous Kangaloon Sun Orchid, Thelymitra kangaloonica.
Haven't heard of it? Shame on you, dear reader. It has been written up here, before.

It is one of those "Threatened Species" things which we managed to use to convince Malcolm Turnbull to declare the SCA's Upper Nepean (Kangaloon) Groundwater project to be a "Controlled Action" under the EPBC Act.

And last year, Peter Garrett deemed this plant to be "critically endangered" and put it on the Threatened Species lists of the EPBC Act.

The problem for this plant is that it lives only at 3 known locations in the Southern Highlands - all of which are under the control of the SCA.

1. Wildes Meadow Swamp was flooded by the SCA to build the Fitzroy Falls Reservoir - so that registered swamp habitat (for this plant) is now permanently under water.
   
2. Stockyard Swamp is off limits to everybody except Coal Miners, Power Company workers, Drilling Rigs and all those other sensitive souls who work for the SCA. That is right in their best source of water for the SCA in trying to develop the Kangaloon Borefield - well, so they believe anyway. Orchid enthusiasts, even authentic researchers are denied access. It was where this species was first found, and "voucher specimens" collected. It was identified at that stage as belonging to a different species (Thelymitra grandiflora). Those herbarium specimens have since been re-examined and found to belong to this species.
   
3. That leaves Butlers Swamp. Fortunately, the SCA has continued to recognise as legitimate the interests of the Australasian Native Orchid Society, Illawarra Branch, which has conducted surveys of Butlers Swamp for some 30 years. Butler's Swamp is the "type locality" for this plant. In other words, the specimen from which this plant was formally described and named came from Butler's Swamp.
   

So there they were, flowering happily last weekend.

(Click to enlarge image)

Here are two flowers on a multi-flowered stem.
You can see the rich blue colouring (with a hint of purple)
and the strong veining.

And here is the distinctive column and "post-anther lobe"
(the hooded bit over the column)
The "column arms" are held relatively flat in this species
(they do not bend or curl upwards as some others do)
and are well separated from the yellow section of the "hood".
The lobe is "notched" and "toothed.
These are diagnostic features of this species.It was gratifying to see that these plants are doing quite well this year.

Lets hope that the SCA does not resume pumping from the Kangaloon Aquifer, for when they did their trial pumping, they dried the swamp out terribly, despite their denials to the contrary. We have photographic evidence of that.