Pterostylis R.Br.

Fl. solitary or more rarely a few-fld raceme; floral bract often not differentiated. Per. glab. or minutely scabrid, mostly green; dorsal sepal uppermost, deeply concave and curved, its lateral margins dovetailed into petals to form with them a hood or galea; lateral sepals connate for part or most of their length, the free lobes diverging widely or narrowly, their tips short or long, acuminate to almost filiform; petals falcate with anterior margins shortly adnate to base of lateral sepals, posterior margins free under dorsal sepal, outer surface with a median longitudinal groove into which the slightly involute margin of the dorsal sepal locks. Labellum the smallest of the per.-segs, us. included for most of its length, mobile on a claw attached to column-foot; lamina us. undivided, sts with hairs but us. without calli, produced, at line of junction with claw, into an appendage that is us. strap-shaped and ± laciniate at its free end. Column elongate, its foot ± adnate to base of dorsal sepal, bearing on either side of rostellum a ± quadrangular, partly twisted wing; anther terminal, pollinia 2 per cell, crescentic, soft but coherent; stigma of 2 lobes, us. vertically elongated and occupying middle of column; rostellum immediately below anther and high above stigma with which it is connected by a narrow groove. Plants terrestrial, us. glab.; tubers ovoid to globose, produced close to or at some distance from parent plant. Lvs several, rosette-forming or distributed up flowering stem, almost orbicular to linear. Peduncle in some spp. elongating after fertilization, as capsule matures.

[From: Moore and Edgar (1970) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 2.]