Brownleea coerulea mauve-blue flowers

The flowers of this slender Brownleea coerulea plant are pale blue with darker blue blotches on the inside of the hood. The specific name, coerulea (sometimes also caerulea) means sky blue or dark blue (Latin). The leaves up the stem continue into the flower spike, reduced as bracts subtending the flowers.

The spur of about 2,5 cm long at the back of the flower grows from the dorsal sepal, its base conical. It is already conspicuous upon the smallest green bud in the photo, angled jauntily upwards to nearly horizontal, later to curve down (Liltved and Johnson, 2012; Gledhill, 1981; Pooley, 1984; www.pacificbulbsociety.org).