Finding a pot-bellied greenhood orchid on the New South Wales South Coast is extremely difficult.
For starters, the plant only flowers for a couple of weeks a year and not necessarily every year.
When it does flower, the petals are the size of your fingernail, which makes it all the more remarkable that a group of about 170 of the rare orchids have been found in the NSW Southern Highlands.
"They've been known for quite a while in the Shoalhaven, so it's exciting to have a large-range extension for the species to the west and up in elevation as well," NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) threatened species officer David Bain said.
"They're rare, they're listed as a critically endangered species and so every new population that we find gives us more confidence that we will be able to conserve the species into the future," Dr Bain said.
The latest discovery comes after a volunteer identified a single plant.
Observations like this are critical because, without them, plant populations may end up being lost to the world before are were even known.
Following the initial sighting, DPIE officers went back for a more thorough search and hit the jackpot.
"Once you start looking for these, you get clued in and your eyes start to pick them up, but with a flower the size of a fingernail — and it might only have two flowers and a flowering stem that might be up to two weeks — they can be challenging to survey for," Dr Bain said.
"They also have a small rosette of leaves that comes up at the same time as the flowers, but there are a number of different species with similar looking leaves, so you need to wait for the flowering to confirm the species."
Why the species is worth protecting
The discovery of the rare orchid comes on the back of a wet summer and a biodiversity mapping project that was already monitoring a population of the rare orchid in Jervis Bay.
Dr Bain said the new find showed a healthy ecosystem and the plants could play an important role with insects and pollinators.
"We know there are relationships between the fungal associations in the soil so there's quite an intricate web of connections around these species.
"There must be an ecological value of having these present in the environment."
He said, while the flowers were not as spectacular as other species of orchid, the fact they were rare was enough to generate excitement among the public.
It also extended the known reach of the plant, which already existed in the Jervis Bay area.
"Botanists get interested in rare species and people get excited about orchids," Dr Bain said.
"Intrinsically there's value in all the species we have in this world."
