A sun orchid so rare it doesn’t even have a name has been discovered in the south west of the Australian state of Western Australia.
The conservation group Bush Heritage Australia, which owns and manages Beringa Reserve, a 1200 hectare property 100 kilometres from Albany, says the area continues to prove itself as a leader in restoring and reconnecting habitats to safeguard Australia’s biodiversity with the discovery of the largest population of the rare sun orchid.
“Knowledge of the orchid and its history is extremely limited, it has not been studied or named because it is so difficult to actually find,” said Bush Heritage ecologist Angela Sanders.
“Fortunately, a large population now has refuge on our reserve.”
Beringa Reserve is part of Gondwana Link, an ambitious project to restore a 1000km swathe of bushland from Western Australia’s southwest to the edge of the Nullarbor Plain.
It is the only landscape-scale corridor in a global biodiversity hotspot in Australia.
“This is a wonderful find and reaffirms that we’re doing the right things on the property,” said Simon Smale, Bush Heritage’s Gondwana Link landscape manager.
“Managing weeds, restoring the landscape and the subsequent discovery of this orchid tells us it is even more essential that remnant bushland is kept intact.”
Orchid enthusiast Keith Smith discovered the orchid during a study of vegetation communities on Beringa Reserve.
“I saw a bright yellow colour through the window and yelled out to the driver to stop,” said Mr Smith.
“It also passed the ‘smell test’ as the orchid has a unique and possibly unpleasant, odour,” he added.
“This orchid has only ever been recorded in two other locations, both of which are much smaller populations.”
T
he region, known as the South-west Botanical Province, is Australia’s only internationally recognised biodiversity hotspot.
The South-west Botanical Province contains 12.6 per cent of the world’s rare and threatened flora, although it covers only 0.23 per cent of the world’s surface.
The Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation has confirmed the find as a very rare and undescribed sun orchid.
As well as protecting this very rare sun orchid, Beringa Reserve provides feeding habitat for threatened Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo and is part of a program to increase numbers of threatened tammar and black-gloved wallabies.
