Glossodia

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

WaxLip orchids
Wax Lip orchid, Glossodia major
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Liliopsida
Order:	Asparagales
Family:	Orchidaceae
Genus:	Glossodia R.Br.

Glossodia are a small family of mostly purple orchids from Australia. In spring vast numbers of Glossodia major flower on uncleared land.

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 pollenation but can lead to a reasonably large collection of plants over many years.