Disa versicolor

The apple-blossom orchid, as Disa versicolor is commonly known, is a robust perennial growing from an underground, tuberous rootstock to heights from 20 cm to 70 cm.

Apart from its annual, leafy flower stem the plant produces leaves on a shoot separate from the flower stalk but from the same tuber, as is the case with several of the terrestrial orchids. The leaves are mostly basal, tapering to acute tips. The leaves sheathe the stem, the upper stem-leaves small and bract-like.

The thick cylindrical flower stalk bears many tiny, fragrant flowers. Flowering happens in summer. Flower colour is pink early and maroon to brown later in the flowering cycle. There is a recognisable Disa shape in the median sepal over the flower centre as a hood, the other two sepals resemble spreading wings below, as in the photo. The floral bract subtending each flower is often soon dry, becoming brown to black. Versicolor is a Latin word meaning variously coloured or changing colour, both meanings functional in the case of this orchid. 

The species distribution is widespread in the east of South Africa, from the Eastern Cape, the eastern Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and north of the Vaal in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo; also in tropical Africa, notably Zimbabwe.

The habitat is marshy and moist grassland from the coast to elevations around 2400 m. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; www.pacificbulbsociety.org; www.zimbabweflora.co.zw; http://redlist.sanbi.org).