The flower of a fairy lantern: this Thismia rodwayi is similar to a new Thismia species found in southeastern Australia (Pic: The Flora of Victoria, Volume 1, p 242)

It looks strange, lives underground, has no leaves and doesn't need sunlight: meet the newest species of the mysterious fairy lantern plant discovered in southeastern Australia.

Discovered by a local enthusiast, the subterranean plant - dubbed Thismia clavarioides - was initially mistaken for a fungus when uncovered in the Morton National Park near Bundanoon, New South Wales.

"The interesting thing is these are incredibly hard things to see and find because they live underground," said Dr Tim Entwistle, director of plant services at Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. "They only really get found by chance."

Fairy lanterns can be found in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, but are generally rare. There are some 30 known species of fairy lanterns, mostly in South-East Asia and South America; this is the third new species to have been found in Australia.

"[The new plant] is very rare and very localised, and quite different to others that have been found," said Entwistle.

Since the initial discovery, 17 other specimens have been collected around Bundanoon. "Prior to that, we had only one other record of the genus found in New South Wales, so this is the only the second time [Thismias] have been found in the state," he said.

Anatomy of a fairy lantern: the main illustration (a) depicts the flower; only the tentacles protrude above the leaf litter. The other (b) is the flower from above (Pic: Telopea)

The plant was first discovered two years ago, but it took some time for scientists to realise they had a new species. The announcement is made in the latest issue of the journal Telopea, published by the Royal Botanical Gardens.

The group of plants lives almost entirely underground, except for a single red to orange tubular flower, with a mitre-like cap and tentacles just emerging into the surrounding leaf litter. The Bundanoon species has been called clavarioides because the tentacles in the cap look like the 'coral fungus', Clavaria.

The whole plant is about three centimetres long. "There are no leaves, nothing sitting above the ground. It relies totally on micro-fungi living amongst its roots for all its nutrients," he said. "It is not known how they cross pollinate - it is thought to probably be ants crawling around in the leaf litter."

The plant is one of the few exceptions to the general rule in biology that all living organisms - especially plants - rely on the Sun for survival. In fact, the plant may well have once been able to carry out photosynthesis. "It would have evolved as a normal photosynthetic plant, and then lost the ability [to photosynthesise]," said Entwistle.

The fairy lantern is similar to orchids, and quite a few orchids depend on fungi as much as they do on photosynthesis for their energy; two underground orchid species are known in Australia. "We are talking about a group of plants that has a strong symbiosis between the fungi and the vascular plants," he said.

The identification of the new species followed a series of chance events. The initial find was made by a local woman taking part in a community fungal survey program known as Fungimap. While looking for mushrooms and toadstools, she found the plant and sent it in, thinking it was a strange type of fungus.

"It turned out it wasn't a fungus, but the fruit of this plant," said Entwistle.

The following season she found the flower, which sits at leaf-litter height, and also sent this in to be analysed. It was only after the fungal expert spoke to colleagues at the botanical gardens in Melbourne - where, coincidentally, one of the botanists had a more common Thismia plant growing on his property in east Gippsland - that he realised it wasn't a fungus.

"We know very little about how this plant works because it is hardly ever seen. It relies on these chance findings," Entwistle said. "Every time something is found there is a lot of chance involved."

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