Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: "In clayey ground, Fagus woods, high land between Norsewood and Danneverke, Waipawa County, 1882; flowering in December: W.C." Lectotype: Specimen B on WELT 22571, Herb. Colenso, without name or locality label.

Plant at fl. to 50 cm. tall. Lf to 2 cm. wide, channelled, thick and heavy, sheathing high up stem. Infl. to c. 12-fld. Per. c. 9–13 mm. long, blue, without stripes or spots. Sepals, petals and labellum similar, narrow-obovate. Column-arms flattened, ± channelled, with yellow fringes and cilia from margins, each arm projecting from inner face of side lobule, us. standing taller than anther; post-anther lobe not as tall as anther, erect, margins yellowish red and ± thickened into finger-like calli; side lobules taller than anther, pinkish or yellowish, fleshy, with subulate erect points on margins and similar or more elongate tubercles on surface.

DIST.: N., S.

Open forest or scrub, banks, pakihi land.

FL. 11–1.

Colenso described a heavily built, many-flowered plant: "Column with pointed tip; appendages (staminodia) long, much longer than the column each bifid, anterior arm [=column-arm] densely fimbriated with yellow fimbriae, posterior ditto [=side lobule] with long subulate erect points at top and crenulated fleshy pink edges on back slope running down to a deep notch at the back, exposing top of column." The lectotype fits this description well.

T. media var. carneo-lutea Nicholls in Vict. Nat., Melb. 60, 1943, 56, fig. A–D should be compared with T. formosa. Judging by an illustration (Nicholls Orchids Aust. 1, 1951, Pl. 11) the column is very similar in colour and general appearance. Willis (Handbk. Pl. Vict. 1962, 350) describes this as a glaucescent plant with flesh-pink perianths, known only from one locality in West Gippsland.