Disa saxicola inflorescence

The lax inflorescence of Disa saxicola may bear more than twenty flowers in an erect cylindrical spike.

A floral bract, in picture purplish in colour especially in its upper part, enfolds the base of each flower’s ovary and tapers to an acutely pointed tip. The bracts are borne erectly, their tips above the buds, but when the ovary has reached its full length, the tip is below (or behind) the corolla.

Flowering happens (in South Africa) from late spring through summer (Pooley, 1998; http://orchids.wikia.com).