Gastrodia lacista, commonly known as the western potato orchid,[1] is a leafless terrestrial mycotrophic orchid in the family Orchidaceae. It has a thin brown flowering stem with up to fifty small, drooping, fawn and white, tube-shaped flowers. It grows in forest and woodland in the south-west of Western Australia.
Gastrodia lacista is a leafless terrestrial, mycotrophic herb that has a thin, brown crook-like flowering stem bearing between five and fifty drooping, fawn and white, tube-shaped flowers that are warty outside and white inside. The sepals and petals are joined, forming a tube NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long. The petals have a few blunt teeth on the edges. The labellum is NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=2NaNsigfig=2 wide and white with irregular edges. Flowering occurs from November to January.[2] [3] [4]
Gastrodia lacista was first formally described in 1991 by David Jones from a specimen collected near Albany in 1989. The description was published in Australian Orchid Research.[5] The specific epithet (lacista) is a Latin word meaning "torn"[6] referring to the edges of the labellum.
The western potato orchid grows in woodland and forest in leaf litter between Bunbury and Albany.