Eulophia cucullata flower

The flower of Eulophia cucullata is dark purplish brown on its narrow sepals, pale to bright pink on the broadly rounded lateral petals and sometimes notched lip, shading into purplish and white.

The inner surface of the lip is yellow, speckled purple or sometimes orange in its centre. A long yellow ridge, flanked by a couple of short ones, protrudes on the surface along the faint veins of the flower lip in picture.

The sepals with in-curved margins tend to be flexed back on open flowers, the petals and lip retaining a forward-angled orientation. The column is erect between the pair of lateral petals.

Flower size is about 3 cm in diameter, the sepals and petals about 2,7 cm long, the petals wider than the sepals (Pooley, 1998; www.zimbabweflora.co.zw).