Flora of New Zealand Series

Original locality: "In forests near Petane, Hawke's Bay, 1883; Mr A. Hamilton". Type: WELT 24263. Recorded also from Lord Howe Id.

Plant forming a close tight clump to several cm. diam. Rhizomes 1–2 mm. diam., firmly fixed to substratum by ∞ roots; pseudobulbs 6–7–(15) × 3–4 mm., ovoid, smooth when fresh, becoming wrinkled with drying, surface then ± dotted with swollen white cells; membr. scale-lf at first sheathing base of green lf. Lf-lamina to 50 × 5 mm. but us. less, linear-oblong, acute, glab.; petiole short, ill-defined. Fls 1-several; peduncle from base of pseudobulb, c. 1–2 cm. long; floral bracts ± triangular, pedicels very short. Ovary minutely tuberculate. Per. c. 4 mm. long, whitish except labellum. Sepals not hairy; dorsal narrow-ovate; laterals much broader, triangular-ovate, slightly pouched below. Petals much smaller, ovate, obtuse. Labellum "bright vermilion-red with a central yellow line", mobile on long slender claw; lamina oblong-obovate or subhastate, thick and fleshy, lower part with 2 raised ridges, margins strongly recurved at tip. Column short, stout, 2-winged at top.

DIST.: N., scattered localities. S., Collingwood, Dall.

Epiphytic on trees.

FL. 4–5.

Colenso (T.N.Z.I. 22, 1890, 488) supplemented his original account with a description of flowering specimens gathered by A. Hamilton in woods near Palmerston, April 1889. The immature capsule is c. 5 × 3 mm., with almost fleshy walls.

Colenso's paper describing B. tuberculatum was read on 12 November 1883. On 13 February 1884 Buchanan (T.N.Z.I. 16, 1884, 397) announced the finding of the same plant, under the name B. exiguum F. Muell., in the Collingwood district, Nelson, "collected during the last season by Mr Dahl, and forwarded to the Colonial Museum, Wellington". Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 334) describes B. tuberculatum as differing from the Australian B. exiguum in "smaller size and more compact habit, shorter peduncles, shorter and broader sepals and petals, and broader and thicker bright orange-red lip".

Rupp (Vict. Nat., Melb. 52, 1935, 73) records B. tuberculatum from Lord Howe Id, remarking on the prominently glandular-hispid peduncles, pedicels and ovaries.