The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

I saw this orchid flowering in the Eyre Mountains this weekend (at about 1100m). Can someone help with the ID?

And another photo

And yet one more

Kiaora Jesse - you photographed the wrong bits - you need to take an image showing the labellum front on - if it has a twist at the apex then its in the P. montana agg. I can't tell you anything more than that because I actually don't know which of that complex fits the true P. montana - you'd need to ask Brian Molloy that. Next time you see it get that critical image - as close up as you can :-)

Here is another photo, but it's not a good shot of the labellum. It was a very windy day and also bright and harsh light, so getting any kind of macro shot in focus was pretty hard!

Here is a poor photo of the labellum from the front, doesn't appear to have a twist in it.

Jesse - I don't think your Pterostylis is part of the P. montana complex. It approaches P. venosa but I don't think it fits there exactly either. We have several unnamed Pterostylis in New Zealand and perhaps your images fit one of those. You could try passing it by the images on the New Zealand Native Orchid Group (http://www.nativeorchids.co.nz/index.html) and see how it fits there - though I tried and couldn't form any definite opinion.

Hi Jesse, it can be really difficult distinguishing P. montana agg. in the lower South island as the labellum is sometimes only tilted to the side rather than obviously twisted. It is what you plant most looks like. I see NZNOG have a thing called P. "Bluff" which looks similar, but I don't know anything about this entity. As Peter notes there are also some silmilarities with P. venosa which occurs in higher altitude areas like the Eyres and which is variable in shape, but the upright lateral sepals would separate this from P. montana I think

Mike - the problem with P. montana is, as I noted, the fact that no one really knows what the name applies to. The type is a unicate, and the description and accompanying illustrations so vague, that they may as well not have been prepared at all. The result is that any Pterostylis with a slight twist in the apical portion of the labellum is "P. montana". BTW Pterostylis "Bluff" is more common on Stewart Island, it is part of the P. banksii complex, and is easily recognised by the crenulate margins off the leaves. In the southern South Island distinction between P. venosa and "P. montana" is very tricky - what is needed really is a modern revision of P. montana and indeed the N.Z. members of the genus (including the segregates from Pterostylis s.l.). Anyway...Jesse has sent me further images, and now knows that its critical, if using images for determinations to take clear images of the key diagnostic characters.

Cheers Peter, totally agree that tidying up Pterostylis s.l. is a high taxonomic priority. Illustrating the various forms is done reasonably well in NZ native orchid group website - but have to take them all with grains of salt. As a rough guide for people: to have a good chance of 'identifying" an orchid from photos requires photos of leaves; overall habit; lateral, oblique and face-on views of flower (particularly the labellum area) and I am also starting to do cut-aways of the inside of the flower