Scientific Name: Sarcochilus australis

Common Name: gunns tree-orchid

Family Classification (Clade): Monocots

Family: Orchidaceae

Form Description: A small, pendulous, epiphytic orchid, with a tuft of 3-10 linear leathery, dark-green leaves and long roots.

Height (m): 0.05 – 0.1

Flowers: Pendulous racemes of 2-14 sweetly fragrant pale green or brown flowers; lateral sepals are brilliant white externally with mauve stripes internally, forming a pouch below the labellum.

Municipality
Break O’DayBurnieCircular HeadDorsetFlindersGlamorgan-Spring BayKing IslandLatrobeNorthern MidlandsWest Tamar
Plant Communities
RainforestRiparianWet Eucalypt Forest
Habitat Notes

Most commonly found in sheltered, shady and permanently moist gullies, where it grows on a range of shrubs and trees, usually at about eye level, but also in rainforest and other moist forest types. It is occasionally found on low boulders. Cannot tolerate dry conditions and consequently is threatened by both habitat clearance and climate change. Widely scattered but locally fairly common in coastal and near coastal lowland in the east, central north and north-west, and in the Furneaux Group.

Site Tolerance

Moist, Shady, Waterlogged

Soil Tolerance

Clay, Fertile, Loam, Nutrient-poor, Poorly-drained, Sandy

Frost Tolerance

Tender

Propagation Calendar

  • Flowering Month
    Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
  • Seed Collecting Month
    Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
  • Sowing Month
    Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
  • Cutting Month
    Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Propagation Method
Specialist 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.