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Long-tailed rustyhood

Pterostylis woollsii

Long-tailed rustyhood
Photo: Richard Hartland, CC BY 3.0 au

Long-tailed rustyhood is a native terrestrial orchid of eastern Australia that grows from an underground tuber and is known for its translucent flowers with unusually long tails on the sepals. It is a wild woodland species rather than a commonly grown garden plant, and it is best left in its native habitat.

Family
Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Grows as
Orchid
Light
Part shade
Water
Keep the soil moist during the growing season and let it dry out while the plant is dormant.
Soil
Well-drained, humusy forest-type soil or a gritty terrestrial orchid mix.
Temperature
Cool to mild temperatures, roughly 5–25 °C; protect from hard frost.
How easy
Hard
Native range
SE. Queensland to Victoria
Climate
subtropical

About

Pterostylis woollsii, commonly known as long-tailed rustyhood, is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It has a rosette of leaves at its base and up to six transparent flowers which have unusually long tips on their lateral sepals and a reddish-brown, insect-like labellum.

Where it grows

Long-tailed rustyhood has a widespread but disjunct distribution in New South Wales where it grows in forest in grassy or rocky places. It also occurs in Queensland as far north as Carnarvon Gorge but in Victoria it is only known from the Rushworth area.

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 woollsii 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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