Satyrium odorum

Satyrium odorum, the soet-trewwa in Afrikaans, is a stout terrestrial orchid with small, yellow-green flowers, sometimes with a purple tinge or speckles, as present in the picture.

The S. odorum flower is deeply hooded by the rounded lip of the flower, the median petal, positioned at the top. The feature of the lip being above occurs in all Satyrium plants, this being one of the non-resupinate orchid species. Resupinate means upside down, facing upward or supine. When most orchid flowers open, the median petal at the top moves to the bottom from a twist of the flower through 180?.  Notable exceptions are the Satyrium and Pachites genera that dont do the twist, remaining non-resupinate with lips on top, instead of the common orchid appearance of the median sepal being on top and the lip below.

S. odorum lips narrow at the entrance and a small fringe recurves on its upper margin. The two slender lip spurs reach lengths between 1,3 cm and 1,8 cm.

The sepals of S. odorum are deflexed, the lateral ones between 4 mm and 8 mm long. The lateral petals, smaller than the sepals, are also deflexed, flanking the median sepal below. 

The leaves are cauline (found all the way up the flower stem) and fleshy, pale green, reducing in size higher up. The flower spikes reach a height of 55 cm (Liltved and Johnson, 2012; Bean and Johns 2005; Manning and Goldblatt, 1996).