Disa tenuifolia Sw. 1800 SECTION Disa Linder Photo by Tyrone Genade

Plant and Flower in situ Photo by © Cameron McMaster

to LATE EARLY

Common Name The Delicately Leafed Disa - The Yellow Disa

Flower Size more than 1" [more than 1.25 cm]

Found in South Africa in damp localities, often in moss at elevations of 500 to 1800 meters as a miniature, cold to cool growing terrestrial plant with dimorphic, imbricate to lax, lanceolate, almost completely sheathing leaves and grading into the numerous, linear radical leaves that blooms in the late spring and early summer on a termial, erect, 4 to 6 flowered, loosely corymbose raceme with narrow sheathing bracts that are shorter than the ovaries. They grow in colonies and really put on a show after a fire has been through.

Synonyms Disa lutea H.P. Linder 1985; Disa patens (L. f.) Thunb. 1794; Ophrys patens L. f. 1781; Orchis tenuifolia Burm.f. 1768; Penthea patens (L. f.) Lindl. 1838; Serapias patens (L.f.) Thunb. 1794

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as Penthea patens; Wild Orchids of Southern Africa Stewart, Linder, Schelpe & Hall 1982 as Disa patens photo fide; Schlechteriana Vol 2 No 4 1991 as D patens photo fide; Orchids of Southern Africa Linder & Kurzwell 1999 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 66 #1 2002 photo fide; A molecular phylogeny for the large African orchid genus Disa Bytebier 2006

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