Prasophyllum colemaniarum
R.S.Rogers Lilac Leek-orchidFlowering stem to 45 cm tall, stout. Leaf-blade green, to 30 cm long, 8–10 mm diameter at base, purplish, apex suberect, senescent at flowering. Flowers colourful, white, pink and green, fragrant, 10–20 in a loose to moderately dense, narrow spike; ovary ovoid, to 5 mm long, inclined at 30 deg. or less to the rachis; sepals green 7–8 mm long, dorsal sepal ovate-lanceolate, acute, deflexed, lateral sepals free, narrow-lanceolate, spreading, pouched at the base; petals oblong, 7–8 mm long, divergent, broader toward the blunt apex, pink or white. Labellum pink or white, widely ovate, to 8 mm long, sessile, slightly recurved near middle, lamina prominently crisped and crenulate; callus plate thin, greenish, ending in hardly raised knuckles just past bend. Column appendages oblong-falcate, blunt, to 2 mm long. Flowers Oct.–Nov.
Known with certainty only by the type collection (1922) from grassy woodland near Bayswater, probably now extinct.
A poorly known species, very closely related to Prasophyllum spicatum and P. truncatum (the latter a Tasmanian endemic), but differing in its hardly recurved labellum, pinkish flowers and pouched base to the lateral sepals.
The species was originally named P. colemanae, but the author indicated that the name was to honour 'Mrs. Coleman and her daughters'. As such, the epithet should be 'colemaniarum' (Latin, feminine, genitive, plural) and according to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (article 60.8; Turland & Wiersema 2018) is to be corrected.
Bates, R.J. (1994). Prasophyllum. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 869–886. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Turland, N.J.; Wiersema, J.H. (2018). International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (Shenzhen Code). Koeltz Botanical Books.