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Black-tip greenhood

Pterostylis bicolor

Also called Midget Greenhood

Black-tip greenhood
Photo: Aaron Clausen, CC BY 3.0

A small terrestrial orchid from south-eastern Australia that grows from an underground tuber and forms a leaf rosette, flowering in spring with bright green flowers. It is a native wild orchid rather than a common garden plant, and it needs its native grassy woodland conditions and a dormant period.

Family
Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Grows as
Orchid
Light
Part shade
Water
Keep the soil moist during the growing season and dry off while the plant is dormant.
Soil
Free-draining, humus-rich soil with leaf litter, as in native woodland.
Temperature
Cool to mild temperate conditions; frost-tolerant as a native of southern Australia.
How easy
Hard
Native range
E. Australia to Victoria
Climate
subtropical

About

Pterostylis bicolor, commonly known as the black-tip greenhood, is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has a rosette of leaves and when flowering, three to ten well-spaced, bright green flowers with a blunt, greenish-black appendage on the labellum. It is similar to the swan orchid, Pterostylis cycnocephala but that species has a beak-like appendage and crowded flowers.

Where it grows

The black-tip greenhood is widespread in New South Wales and found in scattered populations in Victoria. It grows in grassy woodland and forest.

Other Pterostylis plants

Tablelands greenhood · Needle-point rustyhood · Pterostylis actites · Sharp greenhood · Long-tongued summer greenhood · Kauri Greenhood · Sutton Grange Greenhood · Striped greenhood · Shy greenhood · Winter Greenhood · Alpine greenhood · Coastal greenhood

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pterostylis bicolor by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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