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Pterostylis ophioglossa

species of plant

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Science and natureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 19, 2025
Entity authorityQ15500362 ↗
Source-derived summary

Pterostylis ophioglossa, commonly known as the snake-tongue greenhood, is a species of orchid endemic to eastern Australia. It has a rosette of leaves at the base and a single dull green, white and brown flower with a deeply notched labellum.

Description

Pterostylis ophioglossa is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, herb with an underground tuber and a rosette of between four and six egg-shaped leaves. Each leaf is 15–25 mm (0.6–1 in) long and 4–20 mm (0.2–0.8 in) wide. Flowering plants have a similar rosette and a single dull green, brown and white flower borne on a flowering spike 100–250 mm (4–10 in) high. The flowers are 25–30 mm (0.98–1.2 in) long, 10–13 mm (0.4–0.5 in) wide and lean forward. The dorsal sepal and petals are joined and curve forward forming a hood called the "galea" over the column but the dorsal sepal is longer than the petals and has a pointed tip 2–3 mm (0.08–0.1 in) long. There is a flat, broad U-shaped sinus between the lateral sepals which have erect, thread-like tips 22–30 mm (0.9–1 in) long. The labellum protrudes above the sinus and is 13–16 mm (0.5–0.6 in) long, about 3 mm (0.1 in) wide, curved and brown with a deep notch on the end. Flowering occurs between April and July.

Editorial summary

“Pterostylis ophioglossa” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pterostylis, ophioglossa and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewUseful for establishing the present vocabulary of the subject while preserving a route back to the evidence on which that vocabulary rests. The current 212-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Pterostylis, ophioglossa and species.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Pterostylis ophioglossa” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Pterostylis, ophioglossa and species provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15500362. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Pterostylis ophioglossa primary sources, Pterostylis ophioglossa archive and Pterostylis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Pterostylis ophioglossa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.