Bartholina burmanniana flower

The flower of Bartholina burmanniana, also known as a spider orchid, is admired mainly for the deeply divided lip that comprises several long, thin, tapering segments spread in a semi-circle. These needle-like segments may extend to 3 cm wide. There are sometimes more than twenty of them on a flower. A curved spur of 10 cm is found at the flower base. 

Two erect petals are positioned in front of the shorter, narrowly elliptic green sepals with their pointed tips. These petals sometimes have jagged margins and taper to their tips. The flower colour is mainly white, sometimes marked with mauve-blue spots and lines.

Only one flower grows on the single stem that is slender, erect and hairy. It reaches a height of only 20 cm or shorter. What pollinates this orchid is not yet known (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; Manning, 2009).