Zeuxine exilis, commonly known as Ridley’s Ground Orchid or Ridley’s Jewel Orchid, is a terrestrial orchid

Orchidaceae

The Orchidaceae, commonly referred to as the orchid family, is a morphologically diverse and widespread family of monocots in the order Asparagales. Along with the Asteraceae, it is one of the two largest families of flowering plants, with between 21,950 and 26,049 currently accepted species,...

 belonging to the subfamily Orchidoideae

Orchidoideae

The Orchidoideae, or the orchidoid orchids, are a subfamily of the orchid family .They typically contain the orchids with a single , fertile anther which is erect and basitonic....

. It is endemic to Christmas Island

Christmas Island

The Territory of Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. It is located northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth, south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and ENE of the Cocos Islands....

, an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n territory in the north-eastern Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

.

History

The orchid was first recorded and collected in October 1904 by the first director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens

Singapore Botanic Gardens

The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a 74-hectare botanical garden in Singapore. It is half the size of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew or around one-fifth the size of Central Park in New York. It is the only botanic garden in the world that opens from 5 a.m...

, Dr Henry Ridley

Henry Nicholas Ridley

Henry Nicholas Ridley CMG , MA , FRS, FLS, F.R.H.S. was an English botanist and geologist.Born at West Harling Hall, Norfolk, England...

. It was then not officially recorded for over a century; in the third Christmas Island National Park Management Plan (2002) it was considered possibly extinct. Then in 2009 it was found and collected again by visiting research scientist Dr Peter Green.