Tritonia karooica flower

The two-lipped flowers of Tritonia karooica grow in a one-sided spike on an inclined stem. About two to five flowers are angled up and out above the leaves to about double leaf height, subtended by bracts.

The tepals are joined in a long tube before widening in a funnel-shape. Their rounded to obscurely blunt-pointed tips curve out. Flower colours vary in shades of brown, yellow and orange. A few dark veins curve up the pale beige tepals in picture to the margins. Glistening surface cells are visible on the tepals.

The lower three tepals have yellow nectar guides shaped as erect, fin-like ridges from inside the throat to over half the tepal length.

The style is longer than the stamens, its three thin branches whitish and thread-like over the oblong anthers, pale and thickish in picture.

Flowering happens in spring (Shearing and Van Heerden, 2008; iNaturalist).