Growing Underground Orchids

There are many types of orchids and many ways of growing them: right humidity, right soil, and most of all, right lighting. But how does one that lives underground grow? Rhizanthella gardneri is one of the two subterranean orchids that can only be found in Australia.

In May, spring of 1928, John Trott encountered the very first specimen of the underground orchid. A half-inch flower head composed of 10 to 90 small, cream to reddish colored flowers, protected by overlapping bracts that formed a hole at the soil surface. He then gave the specimen to Charles Gardner, the Government Botanist, who then forwarded it to Dr. Richard Sanders Rodgers. Dr. Rodgers, on the same year, described the flower and named it after Charles.

Between 1928 to 1959, the orchid has only been found 6 times, all by chance. It wasn't until 1979 after it has been found again at a private property, 300 kilometers south of its previous known locations. Over 300 flowering plants where then found thereafter. In 1980, it was declared as Rare Flora.

It doesn't grow normally like other orchids. It spends its lifetime underground, and only grows to bloom at the surface when it's ready to propagate. Leafless and lacking chlorophyll, it doesn't rely on photosynthesis but instead live myco-heterotrophic, meaning it has a symbiotic relationship with certain plants and fungi, with Rhizanthella gardneris case, a tea plant of the species Melaleuca uncinta, and a mycorrhizal fungus. This is also why most of the orchid is found 20 to 30 inches near the mentioned tea plant.

Though it can produce three daughter plants vegetatively, it still can reproduce sexually. Its flowers bloom between May and July. A pollinated flower will take six months to mature and will then produce a berry-like fleshy fruit containing a few to a hundred seeds. There are no hard findings but it is thought that certain animals eat the fruit and disperse the seeds with their droppings.

As of now, Rhizanthella gardneri continues to gain the interest of biologists all over the world for its unique lifecycle. Its beauty remains underground.