Cyphia longifolia flowers

The flowers of Cyphia longifolia grow in sparsely flowered racemes, up to 20 cm long. The thickish, green stems are hairy. The flowers are borne on green, hairy pedicels with long narrow bracts at their bases, visible in the photo. Small, narrowly pointed green sepals are present at the corolla bases, not as hairy as the corollas. The two-lipped corolla tubes nod or dangle from their angled up pedicels. 

The corolla mouths are bent up, however, each surrounded by three lobes pointing up and two pointing down. The flower mouths appear in expectant mode, which can only relate to pollinator courtship. Each elegant white flower resembles a tiny saxophone, although the narrowly pointed lobe tips are early beige-brown, to be regarded as better than browned off. Could the sax be dissatisfied with its unheard of musician? Or maybe the lobe tips are old before their time? Such brown lobe tips are common on C. longifolia flowers, as if drying ab initio. Sometimes seen on bud tips not even open (Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; iSpot; Wikipedia).