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Pterostylis saxicola
Also called Sydney Plains Greenhood
Pterostylis saxicola is a small terrestrial orchid from New South Wales, grown from an underground tuber and found in shallow soil on sandstone shelves. It is a wild, rare native and is rarely grown in gardens, so care should focus on protecting its natural habitat.
Pterostylis saxicola, commonly known as the Sydney plains rustyhood, or Sydney plains greenhood, is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to New South Wales. It has a rosette of leaves at its base and up to ten reddish-brown flowers with translucent "windows", relatively wide lateral sepals with short-pointed tips and a dark brown, fleshy, insect-like labellum.
The Sydney plains rustyhood grows in small, shallow soil pockets in flat areas on top of sandstone rock shelves or on mossy rocks in gullies. It is only known from five locations in the Sydney regions between Picnic Point and Picton.
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 saxicola 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.
