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Robust snail orchid

Pterostylis dilatata

Pterostylis dilatata, the robust snail orchid, is a small terrestrial orchid from south-west Western Australia that grows from an underground tuber and flowers in winter. It is a wild native rather than a common garden plant, and the key to growing it is to leave its tuber undisturbed in native soil.

Family
Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Grows as
Orchid
Light
Part shade
Water
Water moderately during the winter growing and flowering season and keep the soil barely moist, then let it dry out while dormant in summer.
Soil
Free-draining, sandy or gritty native soil, such as a sandy loam mixed with leaf litter.
Temperature
10–20 °C; tolerates cool, wet winters and dry summers, protect from frost and heat above 30 °C.
How easy
Hard
Native range
WSW. & SW. Australia
Climate
subtropical

About

Pterostylis dilatata, commonly known as the robust snail orchid, is a species of orchid which is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. Non-flowering plants have a rosette of leaves but flowering plants lack a rosette and have a single green and white flower on a flowering stem with stem leaves. The flowers appear in winter and have lateral sepals which almost close off the front of the flower.

Where it grows

The robust snail orchid grows in shrubland, woodland and in soil pockets on granite outcrops between Geraldton and Israelite Bay in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest, Swan Coastal Plain biogeographic regions of Western Australia.

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 dilatata 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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