Website of Tobias Westmeier - Nature - Orchids of Australia

Hare Orchid
Leporella fimbriata (Lindl. 1840) A.S.George 1971

Synonyms

Leptoceras fimbriata Lindl. 1840
Caladenia fimbriata (Lindl. 1840) Rchb.f. 1871
Eriochilus fimbriatus (Lindl. 1840) F.Muell. 1882

Notes

The Hare Orchid is one of the most common and widespread orchids of Australia. It can be found across much of southern Australia, including south-western WA, south-eastern SA and south-western VIC. It is particularly widespread in WA where it occurs from just south of Shark Bay in the north to Israelite Bay in the south-east. Flowering in autumn (typically between April and June), the species can be encountered in a wide range of different habitats and soils.

Hare Orchids often form large colonies that can be made up of several hundred individual plants. While the characteristic leaves often cover the ground in large numbers, only very few plants actually produce a flower in any particular year. Due to their minuscule size and dull colouration, the flowers are extremely difficult to find. It is usually much easier to locate the characteristic leaves during the winter, in particular in open, sandy areas, and then return during the following autumn to find the tiny flowers.

Each flower stem usually contains just one or two flowers, but I have seen as many as four on rare occasions. Curiously, the flowers retain their general shape for many weeks after pollination and are often still recognisable well into winter, although their colours will usually have faded by then. The tiny leaves are characteristic and almost unmistakable. They appear several weeks after the flowers in winter and often come in pairs of opposite leaves, one of which is larger than the other.

In south-western WA the Hare Orchid is one of the most abundant and widespread orchid species. It often occurs in large numbers in native bushland, but is easily overlooked due to its small size and the fact that only very few plants, if any, produce a flower in any particular season. It frequently colonises disturbed areas such as open, sandy patches where the often large colonies of leaves are comparatively easy to spot. Accompanying species include the Red Beaks (Pyrorchis nigricans) and the White Bunny Orchid (Eriochilus dilatatus), the latter of which flowers at about the same time in autumn.