Dear All, Hi, I asked Malcolm Thomas who is very knowledgeable about Australian orchids and who was once a member of our list to review the names and pictures of some orchids I've been adding to the wiki that we saw in Australia to make sure that I had correctly identified them. The first ones I did were fine, but not the more recent additions. Even though I have a field guide written by David and Barbara Jones in 2000 (A Field Guide to the Native Orchids of Southern Australia), it appears that Mr. Jones along with a colleague, Mark A. Clements have suggested multiple name changes for many of the orchid genera since then. They propose splitting some of the genera into many new groups. In a very short period of time they have gone from name to name to name. Not everyone agrees about these changes although some of the Australian botanists in some states are adopting them. The final outcome is uncertain. In addition a couple of my identifications were wrong. Fortunately, Mr. Clements and Mr. Jones have put a name index online: http://anbg.gov.au/cpbr/cd-keys/… This document is 275 pages long which illustrates both how many orchids there are in Australia and also how many different names these orchids have been known under. Malcolm commented to me that he hoped his email would help, but it might cause more headaches than happiness. I debated what to do about changes Kew and others are not accepting, but which are based on sound study by Australian orchid experts and have been adopted by others. Although I know we aren't entirely consistent about how we have done this on the wiki, for now I am listing them both places with synonyms and an explanation. Perhaps in a few years if these changes are more widely accepted the wiki can be changed. In each instance there was only one species per new genus page so it didn't take up too much space to have them in two places. So for those of you who might be interested the large Bird orchid I saw should have been identified as Chiloglottis valida and is now known as Simpliglottis valida. Chiloglottis is being reserved for fall blooming species and two new genera were created for the spring and summer blooming species. The Greenhood orchids that I identified created a much bigger headache. Pterostylis under the new system has been divided into Pterostylis, Bunochilus, Crangonorchis, Diplodium, Eremorchis, Hymenochilus, Linguella, Oligochaetochilus, Petrorchis, Pharochilum, Plumatichilos, Ranorchis, Speculantha, Stamnorchis, Taurantha, Urochilus. I added pictures of four species to the wiki and each one is considered to be in a different genus. If you are interested you can look at the original page: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… One of the ones I added had the species name changed from my field guide and another one Malcolm corrected as he believed it was a different species of bearded Greenhood, now considered to be Plumatichilos tasmanicum I've not started yet on the Caladenia pictures, but I've been warned that genus has multiple changes. Besides the original Caladenia and Cyanicula (blue) which was separated out earlier we now have these additional genera as synonyms not listed in my 2000 field guide: Arachnorchis D.L.Jones & M.A.Clem. Caladeniastrum (Szlach.) Szlach. Calonema (Lindl.) D.L.Jones & M.A.Clem. Calonema (Lindl.) Szlach. Calonemorchis Szlach. Drakonorchis (Hopper & A.P.Br.) D.L.Jones & M.A.Clem. Ericksonella Hopper & A.P.Br. Glycorchis D.L.Jones & M.A.Clem. Jonesiopsis Szlach. Jonesyella Szlach. Petalochilus R.S.Rogers Pheladenia D.L.Jones & M.A.Clem. Phlebochilus (Benth.) Szlach. Stegostyla D.L.Jones & M.A.Clem. Now if I had Jim McKenney's or Jane McGary's excellent knowledge of languages perhaps what they have chosen to call them would help me sort them out. Arachnorchis is easy, these are what they commonly called spider orchids. And Drakonorchis includes the ones called Dragon orchids. Mary Sue