A new Orchid (for me) - Anzybas unguiculatus

Two weekends ago I was lucky enough to go searching for rare Orchids with Alan Stephenson, in the Shoalhaven area. We went out along the Nowra to Braidwood Road. Officially this road is designated as "Main Road 92". Locally, (near Nowra) it is known as the "Braidwood Road". It runs out past the Nowra Naval Air Base, HMAS Albatross, and eventually goes out to Braidwood.

The Nowra end of this road is extremely good - one is tempted to say too good for the traffic demand on it - and too good for the fact that in the late afternoon, the country it runs through is prime Kangaroo habitat.

The road runs through a mix of poor sandstone forest, tall Turpentine forest, and some wet schlerophyll (Eucalypt forest) before heading back into shallow soil (mixed Scribbly Gum and Banksia scrub) over sandstone as you head towards Tianjara Falls, on the way to "Sassafras" (the village, not the tree). "Google Maps" names this road "Turpentine Road" at that point (as linked above).

Anyway, Alan and Kirsten and I (all members of the Illawarra Branch of the Australasian Native Orchid Society) were taken into some of the side tracks off the Braidwood Road, and after some searching we found a number of these strange little Ground Orchids.

They are now called Anzybas unguiculatus (formerly Corybas unguiculatus)
The specific name means "with a claw" (see the "Dictionary of Botanical Epithets" (a veritable gold mine of a discovery, that one!). If such things interest you, I suggest you "bookmark it" immediately. In fact, from the derivation, it seems the name might be taken to mean the plant has a "finger nail". That works for me.This plant certainly has a covering, like a nail, over the labellum, which is long and tubular. Most dissimilar from the other members of the Corybas tribe I have seen, and from which it has now been "split" by Jones et al. (See explanatory note by PH Weston on the top of that page).

You can see the hooded flower, and the long open tubular labellum
in this pair of images below.

You can clearly see the opening of the labellum here.

Here is the botanical illustration from PlantNET.

You can see the hood or shroud over the top of the labellum
(on the right hand side of the image).
The central section of the flower is the labellum.

This is what the plant looks like, from above.

The two little whitish flares behind the flower are actually fairly distinctive. But depending upon the angle you are looking
they are more (or less) apparent. These plants were well protected by an army of these
yellow-striped Leeches which sought to draw blood from the three of us.

I know they scored at least from two of us. I itch like crazy from the bites of these creatures.