Disa cornuta

Disa cornuta, commonly the golden orchid or golden disa, is a robust perennial reaching heights around 60 cm, occasionally 1 m. The specific name, cornuta, meaning horn in Latin, refers to the resemblance of the spur to a horn.

The overlapping, ascending leaves visible here are long and lanceolate to ovate, their margins wavy. The stalkless leaves sheathe the flower stems. The outer surfaces of lower leaf parts are covered in transversal maroon lines or rows of spots. The leaves reach up to the beginning of the flower spike.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape from Clanwilliam to the Cape Peninsula, eastwards along the coast through the Eastern Cape to inland KwaZulu-Natal along the Drakensberg to the south of Mpumalanga. It is also found in Lesotho and Zimbabwe.

The habitat in these summer as well as winter rainfall areas includes sandstone slopes in fynbos, as well as alpine and tropical grassland to the north. Few orchids besides this one and Bonatea speciosa occur both in summer and winter rainfall areas, and coping with both alpine and subtropical temperatures. The species is promoted by fire, but also flowers in mature veld and in full shade. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Liltved and Johnson, 2012; Andrew, 2012; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).