Moraea ochroleuca flowers and a funny one

The fragrant flowers of Moraea ochroleuca grow on an erect, branched stem. The flower base is enclosed by a green spathe that is leathery and leaf-like.

The widely cup-shaped flower has six similar tepals, oblong with rounded, spreading tips and pleated or folded along their midribs. The flowers are yellow, orange or in picture three-coloured: orange-lined in the cup, yellow around the mouth and pale cream on the spreading tepal tips.

The specific epithet, ochroleuca, is derived from the Greek words ochros meaning pale or sallow and leukos meaning white, blanched or grey, referring to the corolla that must have been thought to be pale. The corolla is about 4 cm long. (One flower in picture is unusual, deviant in having two whorls of about six tepals each.)

The stamens of M. ochroleuca normally make it to the flower mouth, not quite beyond. The filaments form a column, the anthers diverge while the style crests are inconspicuous.

Flowering happens from late autumn to early summer, mostly after fire as in the case of the plant in picture (Manning, 2007; Bean and Johns, 2005; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Andrew, 2017; iNaturalist).