Disa aperta N.E.Br. 1898 SECTION Aconitoideae Photo by © Williamson

Holotype and Drawing Holotype by © A Carson and The Kew Royal Botanical Garden Website

EARLY

Common Name or Meaning The Exposed Disa

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in southern Tanzania and Zambia in dambos within Brachystegia woodlands at elevations of 900 to 2300 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to cold growing terrestrial withovoid to ellipsoid, densely tomentose tubers giving rise to an erect sterile stem that is only partially developed at blooming which is on an erect, rather slender, terete, leafy throughout stem carrying, 4 to 6, the lowest 1 to 2, sheath-like, obtuse, trhe rest erect to adrpressed to the stem, lanceolate, acute, grading smaller above leaves that blooms in the early summer on an erect, terminal, 1.6 to 6.8" [4 to 17 cm] long, rather loosely 6 to 25 flowered inflorescence with thin, lanceolate, acuminate,shorter than the flowers floral bracts.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora of Tropical East Africa Orchidaceae Part 1 Summerhayes 1968; The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977 drawing/photo fide; Flora Zambesiaca Volume 11 Orchidaceae Part 1 Pope 1995;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------