‘In the case of my own species I waited three seasons in each case and saw much material – quite enough to feel sure they were fixed – and entitled to the rank as species. Moreover I based my separation on more than three definite distinctions which are fully apparent in dried material.’
Today, there are several species named by Edith, particularly from Western Australia, including the green comb or diamond spider orchid (Caladenia dilatata var. rhomboidiformis), the rare smooth lipped spider orchid (Caladenia integra), and the clubbed spider orchid (Caladenia longiclavata). She also named the Victorian graceful leek orchid (Prasophyllum pyriforme).
In general, her classifications have proven resilient. I’m not sure if the curled-tongue shell orchid (Pterostylis rogerisii), which she named after Dr Rogers, is still a valid name. The Western Australian orchidologists think so but I can’t find it in the Australian Plant Census. The caladenias seem to have been reassigned to a genus Arachnorchis. I ask a taxonomist at one of the herbaria.
‘You know we all hate the orchids, don’t you?’ he says to me quietly. ‘Their taxonomy is such a mess and no-one can agree.’
There was a scientific revision of the group recently but not all of the state native orchid societies accepted it; not all of the revisions were retained. So different names are used in different states. We’re still waiting on consensus. Taxonomy doesn’t always provide the unambiguous answers I’d like.
I start to wonder what happened to Edith’s collection of dried orchids. I’d imagine her personal collection would have numbered between 100 and 200 different species. It’s about the number of southern orchid species known at the time. It’s also about the size of Rupp’s collection when he donated it to the herbarium in New South Wales. But she would also have collected multiple specimens of different species to ensure correct identification, to account for their natural variation and to trade and share with fellow collectors. The bulk of her specimens might be in the National Herbarium of Victoria – she mentioned in a letter that she intended to donate it to them – but they have no record of her doing so when I inquire there. Not that they would necessarily know. Herbaria are organised around plant species, not their collectors. Personal collections are broken up and distributed through the larger collections, organised into species. Pages with multiple specimens might be split up and reset individually. Collecting details are cut from old pages and glued to new ones, transcribed and amended. Very often pages have multiple entries written in different hands over time. Spare specimens are traded and swapped, their origins sometimes lost in the transactions. There is no way of knowing except by asking the curators to retrieve every individual specimen from their different trays and checking. It’s a lot of work, and they probably have better things to be doing.
When I search the Virtual Herbarium database, I count 118 specimens – nearly all orchids – that might have been collected by Edith Coleman in the National Herbarium of Victoria, several of which are multiples of the same species. There are another 95 in the state herbaria in Adelaide, 90 in Sydney and 39 in Perth. They probably map her connections: Rogers in Adelaide, Rupp in Sydney and Erickson or Goadby in Perth. A handful are scattered in other collections. It’s not a precise record. The numbers shift each time I count them. Some may be mistranscribed or not even catalogued yet. The database is only as good as the data entered.
The type specimen for Prasophyllum pyriforme is in Sydney and I come across it by chance, while looking for something else. Its orange folder stands out from the other pale papers. Type specimens define their species. They are usually the first specimen to be scientifically described: the benchmark for future taxonomic studies. Unlike most specimens, this one has a specially made label and a photograph of the living plant. These details are not because it is a type, but because this specimen is from Edith’s own personal collection. Her collection was obviously meticulously organised and professional. I am relieved that at least one of them has survived.
In 1927, Edith encountered a most perplexing anomaly.
‘In early January my daughter described to me certain remarkable actions on the part of a wasp, which she had observed visiting the flowers of C. leptochila,’ Edith explained.
Cryptostylis leptochila, the small tongue orchid, is a strange flower, even for an orchid. A long, pink, studded tongue curves upwards from a spiked green collar, like a lewd floral punk. It is found only in the eastern half of Victoria, particularly the eastern foothills of Melbourne.
The type specimen for the graceful leek orchid (Prasophyllum pyriforme) from Edith’s personal herbarium
The wasp was behaving strangely.
‘It entered the flowers backwards instead of in the usual manner of nectar feeding wasps,’ Edith continued, ‘the tip of the abdomen appeared to be embedded in the stigma of the flower, and in every instance, the insect freed itself with a jerk, which shook the stem and suggested resistance.’
Edith and Dorothy observed the behaviour in Healesville, Upwey and Belgrave. The wasps, which Edith had identified as ichneumonids (Lissopimpla semipunctata), often hunt for larvae among flowers and will also feed on nectar when it is available. But not in this case. On closer inspection Edith was sure that ‘neither larva nor nectar was the object of their visits to the flowers’. Perhaps they were laying eggs? Careful dissection of the visited orchid found no trace of anything that might be an egg. Edith sent her insect specimens to a leading entomologist. They were all male. The mystery deepened.
By the end of the season, the only facts of which she could be confident were that the insect visited the orchid purposely, entered the flower backwards and successfully pollinated the orchids.
‘What then,’ she asked her colleagues in the Victorian Naturalist, ‘was the payment exacted by the
