THELYITRA pauciflora

Thelymitra pauciflora is one of the more common sun orchids which flower in October and November and into early December on warm days. The flowers will remain at the late bud stage for some time and open quickly when the temperature rises above 19/20 degrees. The flowers can be blue or pinkish and are slender usually from one to 3 per stem.

The examples shown here were flowering on very open, somewhat barren slopes on mudstone in bushland on the hills behind South Hobart. The habitat is dry sclerophyll forest. This species is very widespread and recorded in most areas of Tasmania. A very small form exists around S Hobart, Kingston and Blackmans Bay with a scape of around 15-20 cm and very tiny flowers around 5-7 mm across. This seems to be an atypical form and might actually be T exigua but expert opinion is the ID of these orchids is unclear. The second two images show this form. Recorded South Hobart 8 Nov 2022.