Eulophia tuberculata flower

The sepals, petals and lateral lip lobes of this Eulophia tuberculata flower all have dark to dull red colouring on their inside surfaces: the sepals brown and shiny, the petals dull red and the lip lobes brown low down to dull pinkish, their vein lines more defined than on the petals. The lateral petals in this species may be up to 50% bigger than the sepals, in picture the difference appears to be considerably less.

A chin-like hump, the mentum occurs below the column in flowers of this species. The stout column becomes up to 4 mm long. A slight bulge is all that may sometimes be seen of a vestigial spur in E. tuberculata.

The specific name, tuberculata, is derived from the protuberances at the back of the lip crest, or the two prominent ones seen right at the back on the mentum. The lip crest is bright yellow here; the outer petal surfaces a dull creamy yellow.

When the sepals are as long as the petals, one should check whether the plant is not E. clavicornis var. inequalis (Liltved and Johnson, 2012; Van Wyk and Malan, 1997).