Disa – artbyeileen

I am currently working on a series of botanical’s native to South Africa. There are such a wide variety to choose from and having a florist for a mother and a horticulturist/forester for a father I grew up with an extensive knowledge of our local flora. I wanted to draw something that not only reminded me of home, but something that had a special memory for me, a flower that was a little more special than the rest….

Disa uniflora

A4 Artists sketch paper

Pencil crayons and B pencil

The Disa grows near waterfalls and streamlets and other moist places. It blooms during the summer months and grows from tubers. The insect which pollinates the flower is the mountain Pride Butterfly and this time of year there are plenty fluttering about.

Mountain Pride butterfly (on a Disa)

Every 2nd weekend in February our family and my parents best friends who had a daughter the same age as myself used to make an annual pilgrimage to the Disas in Orangekloof, in the Western Cape. Not everyone had access to this part of the mountain. Only forestry or people with permits were able to walk in this area. My father being a forester had easy access and we would walk up this beautiful kloof with a picnic on our backs and spend the day swimming and picnicking and then climb up to where the Disas were flowering before we started our trek home. We did the walk for as long as I could remember every February so it seemed fitting to chose a Disa as the first in the series.