Satyrium ligulatum

The flowers of Satyrium ligulatum are yellowish green or white, tinged with purple. There are finely textured bracts, greenish to faintly purple in colour below each flower. They are oblong, tapering to acute tips, or sometimes nearly triangular in shape, pointing downwards among the densely clustered flowers on the cylindrical spike. Near the top of the spike these bracts below the unopened flowers still point upwards, to be reflexed upon the opening of the flowers.

The sepals of the flowers are joined at the base to the lateral petals and the lip. The two lateral sepals are lance-shaped with long, twisted tips pointing upwards. The lip is cucullate or hood-shaped. It has two curved spurs at the back, partly visible in this picture on some of the flowers. The column in the flower centre is slightly curved, the stigma narrowly oblong.

This plant was photographed in January in the KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg near the Lesotho border (iSpot; JSTOR; www.pacificbulbsociety.org).