Bartholina burmanniana

Bartholina burmanniana is one of South Africa’s two spider orchid species. One more or less heart-shaped to rounded leaf that lies flat on the ground grows annually in winter from the plant’s perennial tuber.

The leaf with its shiny surface may be present or already dried out at blooming time in early spring. Flowers are usually seen only in the first season after a fire.

The species is distributed in the Western Cape from Nieuwoudtville to the Cape Peninsula and eastwards into the coastal part of the Eastern Cape as far as Uitenhage.

The habitat is fynbos and renosterveld flats and lower slopes in clayey, sandy and loamy soils; the literature not ad idem as to which kind of soil. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century.

B. pectinata is one of the earlier names of B. burmanniana (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; Manning, 2009; Wikipedia; http://redlist.sanbi.org).