Aussies delighted by 'amazing' and rarely seen species: 'Impossible to grow at home'
The Elegant Hyacinth Orchid is endemic to Queensland – but actually seeing it is a rare treat.
Australia is full of fascinating nature. But to the untrained eye, so much of it can go unnoticed — especially when some of the "hidden gems" in the outback only show themselves for a few days a year.
That's where Wil Kemp comes in. While driving the iconic Savannahlander train in regional Queensland, he has a microphone in hand and a captive audience of mostly tourists to share his local knowledge with.
For 13 years, he's driven the train which runs from Cairns about 425 kilometres southwest to a tiny town of Forsayth, with a population of 107, according to the last census.
"But before that I worked in zoos for about 10 years, so I've got a really strong interest in native wildlife, and native plants," Wil told Yahoo News Australia. And that's a "a massive focus" he likes to bring to his job, sharing such inside knowledge with passengers, as well as those online when he can.
"It might just look like a sea of grass and eucalyptus tress, but there's a lot of these little hidden gems in that Savannah country in northern Australia that might only show themselves for a week or two, once a year at a particular time," he explained.
"It's those kinds of things that I find amazing — they're special and I don't think people really know about them."
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One of those is the Elegant Hyacinth Orchid which lives an almost completely subterranean lifestyle, but just happened to pop up into full view last week alongside the track Wil drives his train on.
Elegant Hyacinth Orchid in bloom just a few days a year
While only appearing in bloom for about a week each year, another reason spotting them in the wild is such a delight is because they simply can't be grown in your garden.
"What is interesting about these orchids is that they have no leaves at all and live under the ground for most of the year. They don't photosynthesise like other plants do to get energy, but rather they rely on a particular fungus that basically acts as a middle man between the nutrients in the soil and the roots of the orchid," he explained online, sharing images of the flower.
"So the fungi spoon feeds the orchid and without the fungi the orchid would most certainly die, which is why it is impossible to grow these at home and removal from the wild means certain death for the plant."
For Wil, that's so "absolutely bloody fascinating" that the flower has even earned a place on his custom made fishing shirt — which he proudly showed off next to pictures of the Orchid after pointing it out to passengers last week.
The train, which Wil said serves mostly "grey nomads from the south" and some international tourists, will only take three more journeys this year before the wet season sends parts of the track under water. Then it won't be back up and running until March.
Aussies wowed by 'spectacular' flower finds this season
It's not the first time this season Aussies have been wowed by a rare orchid. Government officials in South Australia made a "special" find a few weeks ago by coming across bayonet spider orchids in bloom.
The flower is a special species that "has been recently confirmed at only two locations in the world", flora ecologist Jack Casley-Smith told Yahoo News Australia.
Meanwhile, a Tasmanian resident in October shared a "fabulous 'bushfire' of fire orchids" they came across near a beach in the southern state.
Pyrorchis nigricans — also otherwise known as red beaks — are a moderately common species and are known as a fire orchid "as it usually only flowers in profusion following hot fires," Brian Quinn, Horticultural Botanist at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, told Yahoo.
This particular orchid is considered interesting due to its spectacular flowers that can appear in large numbers.
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