Text and photos by Gary Backhouse 
a beautiful species with up to 30 large 
bright yellow flowers. There were several 
hundred flowering plants growing in the 
drain beside the road and on the adjoining 
private land. Many plants were growing in 
standing water, as I found out when I 
stepped out of the car in near darkness to 
photograph them! 
From Nelspruit I travelled to Sabie, 
where several species of Eulophia were in 
flower in a small grassland reserve there. 
Eulophia foliosa has a short inflorescence 
Eulophia adenoglossa Johannesburg 
The Australian Orchid Review, June/July 2009 
of crowded green, hanging, poorly open- 
ing flowers, and is difficult to detect grow- 
ing amongst the dense summer grasses. A 
strange looking species is Eulophia leon- 
toglossa, which has a nodding head of 
clustered white flowers with brown bris- 
tles on the labellum. These also grow deep 
within the thick sward of summer grasses, 
and trying to photograph the plants when 
the flowers point to the ground is a real 
challenge. In contrast, the tall stately 
Eulophia streptopetala was much easier to 
Eulophia foliosa Sabie 
photograph. This fabulous species was 
growing on a roadside on the margins of a 
pine plantation, and has large brown and 
yellow flowers on stems to 2 metres tall! 
The final area searched was in the high 
altitude grasslands of the Steenkampsberg 
Plateau near Dullstroom, where two more 
Eulophia species were growing. Eulophia 
clavicornis var. nutans is a small, unobtru- 
sive species usually hidden in the thick 
summer grasses, and has the petals closed 
over the labellum. Another highly attrac- 
EEE ET 
