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, 14:24, 5 July 2007
{{for|the suburb of Sydney in Australia|Glossodia, New South Wales}}
{{Taxobox
| color = lightgreen
| name = WaxLip orchids
| regnum = [[Plant]]ae
| divisio = [[Flowering plant|Magnoliophyta]]
| classis = [[Monocotyledon|Liliopsida]]
| ordo = [[Asparagales]]
| familia = [[Orchidaceae]]
| genus = '''''Glossodia'''''
| genus_authority = [[Robert Brown (botanist)|R.Br.]]
}}
Glossodia are a small family of mostly purple orchids from Australia. In spring vast numbers of ''Glossodia major'' flower on uncleared land.
== Cultivation ==
Glossodia are hard to maintain in cultivation, growing from seed in-vitro has yielded very poor results, and plants rescued from land clearing usually last only a few years. This is most likely due to the complete reliance on a symbiotic fungus for food. The orchid forms no roots and gets all its food from interacting with [[mycorrhizal]] fungus through its 'collar'. A reasonably successful solution to this is to grow new plants in the same pot from the produced seed each year. This usually requires hand pollenation but can lead to a reasonably large collection of plants over many years.
{{Orchid-stub}}
[[Category:Orchid genera]]
[[Category:Orchids of Australia]]