Bonatea pulchella Summerh. 1964 Photo by © Lourens Grobler

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Beautiful Bonatea

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]

Found in Mozambique and Transvaal South Africa in dune forests and bush in sandy, coarse soils often under thickets at elevations up to 800 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial with wooly, cylindrical tubers giving rise to a stem with 3 sheaths and carrying several, in a basal rosette, ovate, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late fall and early winter on a terminal, erect, 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long, 3 to 5 flowered, racemose inflorescence.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Wild Orchids of Southern Africa Stewart, Linder, Schelpe & Hall 1982 photo fide; Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Part 1 Pope 1995 drawing good; African Orchids in the Wild and Cultivation La Croix 1997; Orchids of Southern Africa Linder & Kurzweil 1999 photo fide; Field Guide to the Orchids of Northern South Africa and Swaziland McMurty, Grobler, Grobler & Burns 2008;

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