Pterostylis vitrea, commonly known as the glassy leafy greenhood, is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to Queensland. Non-flowering plants have a rosette of leaves on a short stalk. Flowering plants lack a rosette but have up to seven translucent green flowers with darker green lines on a flowering stem with between five and seven stem leaves.
Pterostylis vitrea is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous herb with an underground tuber. Non-flowering plants have a rosette of between three and six leaves, each leaf NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long and NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide on a stalk NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 high. Flowering plants have up to seven translucent green flowers with darker markings on a flowering spike NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 high. The flowering spike has between five and seven stem leaves which are NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long and NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide. The flowers are NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide. The dorsal sepal and petals are joined to form a hood over the column with the dorsal sepal having a brown tip. The lateral sepals turn downwards and are NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide, joined to each other for more than half their length with brown tips. The labellum is NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide and cream-coloured with a dark stripe along its mid-line. It flowers from April to July.[1] [2]
The glassy leafy greenhood was first formally described in 2006 by David Jones who gave it the name Bunochilus vitreus and published the description in Australian Orchid Research from a specimen collected near Maleny.[3] In 2008, Peter Bostock changed the name to Pterostylis vitrea.[4] The specific epithet (vitrea) is a Latin word meaning "glassy",[5] referring to the glassy appearance of the flowers.
Pterostylis vitrea grows in wet forest and on rainforest margins, sometimes near rocky cliffs between the Kenilworth and the McPherson Range.