Flora of New Zealand Series

Original locality: "Middle Island, Otago, Lyall". Type: K(?).

Plant at fl. c. 5–20 cm. tall. Stem erect, slender, pilose below with long tapering hairs, glandular-pubescent above. Green lf solitary, linear-lanceolate, us. overtopped by fls, sparsely pilose with long tapering hairs. Floral bracts 1–4, lower ones often empty. Fls 1–4 in lax raceme, ovary us. > bract. Per. 1.5–2.5 cm. diam., white to pink, sts obscurely striped, glandular and ± hairy externally. Sepals elliptic-oblong; dorsal wider and ± arched over column; lateral widespreading, subacute. Petals similar to lateral sepals. Labellum 3-lobed; mid-lobe narrowly triangular and recurved; lateral lobes broad, transversely barred with red; calli yellow, in 4 ± regular rows on disc, smaller and crowded on mid-lobe and its margin. Column curved; wings of uniform width from base to anther, transversely barred with red.

DIST.: N., S., St., A. South of c. lat. 38º.

Beech forest, high altitude scrub and grassland, to sea level in far south.

FL. 11–1–2.

C. lyallii was long regarded as endemic to N.Z., but Rupp and Hatch (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 70, 1946, 57) consider C. alpina Rogers in Trans. roy. Soc. S. Aust. 51, 1927, 12 as conspecific. Willis (Handbk Pl. Vict. 1962, 394) accepts this synonymy and gives Victoria, Tasmania and N.S.W. as the Australian distribution.

The new tuber is produced close to, but often lower than the previous one, the new shoot emerging through old lf-sheaths.