Glossodia

For the suburb of Sydney in Australia, see Glossodia, New South Wales.

Glossodia
Waxlip orchid, Glossodia major
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Monocots
Order:	Asparagales
Family:	Orchidaceae
Subfamily:	Orchidoideae
Genus:	Glossodia R.Br.

Glossodia is a genus of mostly purple orchids from Australia. In spring vast numbers of Glossodia major flower on uncleared land.

There are only two recognised species:

• Glossodia major R.Br. - Waxlip Orchid, native to Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.
• Glossodia minor R.Br. - Small Waxlip Orchid, native to Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Cultivation

Glossodia are hard to maintain in cultivation, growing from seed in-vitro has yielded very poor results, and plants rescued from land clearing usually last only a few years. This is most likely due to the complete reliance on a symbiotic fungus for food. The orchid forms no roots and gets all its food from interacting with mycorrhizal fungus through its 'collar'. A reasonably successful solution to this is to grow new plants in the same pot from the produced seed each year. This usually requires hand pollination but can lead to a reasonably large collection of plants over many years.