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Synonyms: Bunochilus montanus D.L.Jones APNI*
Pterostylis montana (D.L.Jones) G.N.Backh. APNI*

Description: Terrestrial herb

Rosette stalk 20–80 mm long; leaves 3 to 6, lanceolate, 6–25 mm long by 2–6 mm wide, margins entire and plane or crinkled; petioles to 3 mm long.

Flowering plants 15–70 cm tall, stem leaves 5 to 7, linear-lanceolate 10–70 mm long by 3–5 mm wide. Flowers 1–11, porrect, remote, 13–16 mm long by 6–8 mm wide, translucent dark green with indistinct darker green stripes, nitid; sepal tips bright orange-brown. Dorsal sepal 13–17 mm long when flattened, shallowly curved. Synsepalum elliptical to broadly elliptical, 12–15 mm long by 6–8 mm wide, flat, notched to 4–5 mm deep; margins curved, tips divergent to 3–5 mm apart. Petals obliquely oblong, narrow at base where c. 0.8 mm wide, 12–14 mm long by 3.5–4.0 mm wide; anterior margin shallowly curved, basal flanges narrow and elongate. Labellum oblong to oblong-ovate, 5.5–6.5 mm long by 2.5 mm wide, tawny or brown with a dark brown to black basal mound and black central stripe; surface cells bead-like, with numerous acicular cells to 0.5 mm long toward the base; basal mound prominent, recurved, obtuse; margins parallel, lateral lobes well-developed; midlobe 1.5–2.0 mm long, shortly notched, the lobes acute; apex upcurved.

Flowering: August–November

Distribution and occurrence: Southern New South Wales, also ACT, and north-eastern Victoria, between 500 and 1300 m elevation.

In wet sclerophyll forest, and open montane forest, in moist areas and on drier slopes and ridges. Often on roadside verges and embankments.
NSW subdivisions: ST
Other Australian states: Vic.

AVH map***

This is essentially a robust montane to alpine form of Pterostylis melagramma distinguished by its larger flowers with duller sepal tip markings, and the paler labellum that is ovate-oblong rather than 'distinctly oblong' (Jones 2006). Originally described as Bunochilus montanus D.L.Jones, that species epithet preoccupied in Pterostylis by P. montana Hatch so a new name was proposed when Backhouse (2007) transferred Bunochilus montanus to Pterostylis.