|
''Rhizanthella gardneri'', also known as Western Underground Orchid, is a plant in the orchid family, discovered in the spring of 1928 in the wheatbelt of Western Australia. Jack Trott had bent to investigate an odd crack that had appeared in his garden's soil, and had noticed a sweet smell that arose from the ground. Scraping away the soil, he soon uncovered a tiny white flower, about half an inch across, growing underground. What he had found was an entirely new type of orchid. The discovery generated such excitement that a wax model was toured around the British Isles. The white leafless plant is made up of a fleshy underground storage stem (or tuber), which produces flower head consisting of around 150 tightly packed, tiny flowers.〔Hágsater, E. and Dumont, V. (1996) Orchids: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Orchid Specialist Group, IUCN, Gland.〕 Unlike any other orchid in Australia, the Western Australian underground orchid remains completely underground for its whole life. Not being able to obtain the sun's energy, it instead feeds on the broom honeymyrtle, a shrub. It is linked to it by a mycorrhizal fungus〔 named ''Thanatephorus gardneri''. This particular orchid is a myco-heterotroph as it relies completely on the broom honeymyrtle and fungus for its nutrients and carbon dioxide. Having received this from the fungus the plant is then able to convert the water, nutrients and carbon dioxide into the energy needed for growth and maintenance. The plant blooms in May and June and measures 2.5–3 cm. The flower head contains 8 to 90 small dark maroon flowers. ''Rhizanthella gardneri'' reproduces vegetatively by which it can produce three daughter plants. They also undergo sexual reproduction, and underground insects such as termites and gnats are known to pollinate the flowers,〔 attracted by the fragrance. The pollinated flower will then take six months to mature. In all studied flowers these were not dispersed and eventually decayed, thus releasing their seeds.〔 It may be, however, that native marsupials were important dispersal agents,〔 but substantial findings are hard to come by as only 19 mature specimens of the orchid are known to currently exist in the wild and only 300 specimens have been collected to date. == Distribution == The species is endemic to Western Australia, six populations are currently known; these are found in the central wheatbelt near to the town of Corrigin and from locations close to the south coast.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rhizanthella gardneri」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|