Scientific Name: Gastrodia procera
Common Name: tall potato-orchid
Family Classification (Clade): Monocots
Family: Orchidaceae
Form Description: Robust, tall leafless orchid with a brown scape.
Height (m): 0.6 – 1.2
Flowers: 5-70 tubular, horizontal to semi-nodding flowers, to 25mm long, on a crowded raceme. Flowers cinnamon-brown and warty on exterior, crystalline white within. Labellum whitish-yellow with orange margins. Flowers only lightly scented.
Fruit: Papery capsule
Municipality
Plant Communities
Habitat Notes
Tall, shrubby or grassy open eucalypt forest, often in clearings and on disturbed road margins, in well-drained loams and clays rich in humus, often in deep accumulated litter. Widespread but localised and common, favouring higher rainfall areas up to 600m.
Site Tolerance
Dry, Exposed, Moist, Shady
Soil Tolerance
Clay, Fertile, Loam, Sandy, Well-drained
Frost Tolerance
Hardy
General Notes
Fires do not occur frequently in the habitats of this species, but flowering is enhanced by summer fires.
Propagation Calendar
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Flowering Month
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Seed Collecting Month
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Sowing Month
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Cutting Month
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Propagation Method
Seed Information
Seed Treatment Notes
Orchid seeds are very minute yellow, brown or blackish dust-like particles. Orchid seeds are produced within a capsule that splits at maturity and releases thousands to millions of seeds. Dispersed by wind and water and only germinate following infection of the embryo by a suitable mycorrhizal fungus. Very few seeds become mature plants. For more information see Jones, Wapstra, Tonelli, Harris (1999): The Orchids of Tasmania.