Eulophia cucullata

Eulophia cucullata, a grassland orchid, carries delicate inflorescences in the photo among summer grass flowers and seeds. Too frequent grass fires cause bush infestation that would reduce the flowering of this orchid.

Many orchids are not habitat-specific, i.e. will grow in particular ranges of different conditions like elevation, soil type and moisture availability. Even predominantly grassland ecologies vary greatly, for instance from temperate to extreme climates, while some straddle summer and winter rainfall regions.

It is the plant distributed widely that is more likely to have made multiple adaptations. Like people, some are no longer happy with frost or snow, others have lost their resilience for coping with drought, while yet others have their flowers adapted to the features of locally available pollinators, and so forth. Still, they would interbreed if planted together.

E. cucullata is friendly to people: It serves in KwaZulu-Natal as a love charm and in traditional medicine in the treatment of impotence, barrenness and epilepsy. Do not look for superficial meaning in the disease list associated with one medicinal plant (Pooley, 1998; www.zimbabweflora.co.zw).