Thismia hawkesii W.E.Cooper

Cooper, W.E. (2017) Austrobaileya 10(1): 131-132. Type: Cook District: Baldy Mountain Forest Reserve, Herberton Range, near Atherton, 29 January 2017, W. Cooper 2407, R. Jensen, B. Hyland, T. Hawkes, T. de Groot & B. Gray (holo: CNS [spirit only]).

Fairy lantern

Plants lack chlorophyll, fleshy herb, lacking above-ground stems and with flowers borne at ground level, fleshy; roots coralloid, densely clustered.

Leaves spirally arranged, scale-like, narrowly triangular, 2-3.5 mm long, c. 1 mm wide at base, whitish, glabrous, papillose; base truncate; apex acute, entire.

Bracts subtending flowers ovate, mostly keeled, 3.5-6.5 mm long, to 3.5 mm wide, cream-coloured. Flowers solitary, sessile, terminal, actinomorphic, 18-26 mm long (including mitre-process); mitre-process a solitary, terminal tentacle-like process; perianth 14-22 mm long (including mitre process), 7-8 mm wide; tube inflated, urceolate, 6-ribbed with ribs dentate, glabrous except for short hairs lining the aperture margin, white in upper half, aqua-blue ageing to olive-green in lower half, the ribs blackish or very dark brown; outer tepals absent or comprising narrow wings to c. 0.15 mm long, blackish or very dark brown, glabrous; inner tepals 3, 8.5–9.5 mm long (including mitre-processes), c. 5.5 mm wide at the widest part, somewhat trullate, connate (rarely separating with age), forming a hood over each opening and with 3 vertical lobes creating a dished or doughnutshaped depression at apex; mitre-processes terminal, 3-sutured, slender, 5-.5 mm long, blackish or very dark brown, glabrous; stamens 6, connate and forming a pendulous tube hanging from perianth aperture, each with 2 adaxially positioned shallow loculi, indigo-blue, abaxial and adaxial surfaces with erect, colourless, translucent trichomes; connectives rectangular with acute apical lobes; lateral appendages flattened, adaxial, large, wing-like, ± square or sometimes almost hastate, with an acute apex and erect, colourless, translucent, marginal trichomes; anthers adaxial, extrorse, pale yellow; style c. 1 mm long with 3, erect, oblong, emarginate stigmatic lobes, each with minute erect trichomes abaxially and adaxially; ovary inferior, not delimited from hypanthium, unilocular, 3-carpellate, oblate, smooth, aqua-blue, glabrous; ovules numerous.

Fruit a cup-shaped capsule c. 4.5 mm long and 7.5 mm wide, on a pedicel elongated to c. 75 mm above bracts; seeds numerous, spindleshaped, c. 0.5 mm long.

Features not available.

Occurs in NEQ. Known only from a few collections made near Atherton on the Herberton Range, at an altitude of ca. 860 m.

Plants lack chlorophyll and obtain carbohydrates from other plants by accessing fungal mycorrhizal networks.

Description from Cooper (2017).