Prasophyllum buftonianum J.H.Willis (1953:81)
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Conservation Status
Invalid (synonym of Genoplesium pumilum) (POWO, 2025)
Last (and only) record: 1893 (Mattingley, 2001:9)
Rediscovered in: 1972 by Charles Denison 'Deny' King (Mattingley, 2001:9), prior to synonymisation under Genoplesium pumilum (POWO, 2025)
"In 1972, Deny was responsible for another amazing find. This was an orchid that had been collected only once before, in 1893 in the Port Davey area, by the Rev. John Bufton. It had never been found again anywhere. Bufton had sent specimens to Ferdinand von Mueller at the Melbourne Herbarium; they remained there unidentified until 1949. The plant was finally published as a new species in an article by].H. Willis, in the Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania.
And then the search was on. Orchidologist David Jones wrote to Deny, describing the challenge. 'You are the only person in Australia in a position to re-find the species.'
Deny's inveterate curiosity, allied with his keen eye and unique knowledge of the terrain, equipped him well for the search. The 8 centimetres high orchid was said to grow only in heathland, bearing in autumn insignificant greenish brown flowers, only 2 to 3.5 millimetres in size. In February 1973, he found a colony of the tiny orchids on the Rowitta Plains north of Bathurst Harbour. Deny's daughter Mary remembers returning from a four-day walk to the Western Arthurs when her father said, 'We'd better start loolcingout for Cuny's [sic] orchid.' Then only minutes later he spotted it. He had recognised a likely location-a bare patch burnt several years previously, on an elevated welldrained site, rockywith rather poor soil.
So less than a year after Deny received Jones's letter, Curtis wrote, 'You have found Prasophyllum buftonianum, collected in 1893 and not seen since! It is an exciting find.'
They made pilgrimages each year to see it, until Deny discovered it one autumn growing on the bank near the airstrip, in a firebreak only a few hundred yards from the house! This proved to his satisfaction the necessity for burning off to regenerate some species."
(Mattingley, 2001:9-10)
Distribution & Habitat
south-west Tasmania, Australia
Anatomy & Morphology
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
References
Govaerts, R. (2003). World Checklist of Monocotyledons Database in ACCESS: 1-71827. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Mattingley, Christobel. (2001). What an exciting find! Deny King's contributions to science. National Library of Australia News XII(3): 7-10. [December 2001 issue]
POWO. (2025). Plants of the World Online (online resource). Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. Available at: https://powo.science.kew.org/ [Accessed 15 March 2025]