Disa cooperi flower

About 50 such flowers may make up one inflorescence of Disa cooperi. The two pale, pink-purple lateral sepals spread sideways, elliptic in shape with rounded (sometimes pointed) tips. The dorsal sepal or hood is shaped like a tight-rimmed cap at its base.

The comical, slender peak of the cap is the characteristic long spur of the D. cooperi flower. This feature gave rise to the common name of tailsup disa. The hood has faint purple blotches scattered along its outer surface and a yellowish shine within where the pair of lateral petals reside. The yellow lip of the flower is stalked and triangular to rhombic with minutely serrated margin in the photo. The flowers often have green lips. This is one of the non-resupinate disas that bear their floral lips below, at the flower base. This is genetically determined without resupination. The column is erect in the flower centre above the lip.

The dark, more or less withered part visible here is the attenuating tip of a floral bract that managed to get its face in the photo. A second one lurks close by, still wrapped around an ovary (Manning, 2009; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist).