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Rhizanthella
Rhizanthella is a genus of small, leafless orchids native to Australia that spend nearly their whole lives underground, living in partnership with fungi. Growing them is not practical at home; they are known only from wild collections and rarely cultivated.
Rhizanthella, commonly known as underground orchids, is a genus of flowering plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae and is endemic to Australia. All are leafless, living underground in symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi. The inflorescence is a head of flowers held at, or just above the ground but mostly covered by soil or leaf litter and little is known about the mechanism of pollination.
Rhizanthella gardneri occurs in the south-west of Western Australia where it grows in association with broombush (Melaleuca uncinata). R. johnstonii, also from WA, was split from R. gardneri in 2018. Rhizanthella omissa has only been collected once, at an elevation of 1,200 m (4,000 ft) in the Lamington National Park in Queensland. Rhizanthella slateri, formerly known as Cryptanthemis slateri, occurs in the Blue Mountains and similar ranges in New South Wales where it grows in sclerophyll forest. R. speciosa was discovered in 2016 in wet sclerophyll forest in Barrington Tops, which contrasts with the more-open dry forest habitat of R. slateri.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rhizanthella 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.
