fixed

This is a fascinating article, but I wonder about the fire dependency. Here is a quote from p. 15: "We were often saddened by the black devastation left by mountain fires, and as the years went by we feared for the existence of our spongy peat bank which never escaped any of the seemingly regular conflagrations." - thus it seems that the site did burn in the intervening years. They also said in the article that they did annual trips to the site, so if this is a species flowering in response to fire, then they wouldn't have missed it by getting their post-fire timing wrong?

This is quite incredible insight into the longevity of Disa species - something which we have wondered about many times but never found any data on! (Knowing how long species live is very important for a Red List criteria variable, Generation Length).

There is another case of another Disa (incidentally also a white-flowered one!) which has apparently disappeared - Disa nubigena. It was first recorded on Table Mountain in 1997, after a fire, but after the next fire in the early 2000s, repeated visits to the site in the following years did not find any plants. The area burnt again in 2009, but I am only getting around to looking at this assessment again now, and realizing I need to contact the experts to find out if they found it!

But reading this story made me wonder ... this Disa grows in one of the botanically most well-explored areas in the country, but was only found for the very first time in 1997. There were no, as with many other "new" species, old misidentified specimens lying around in herbaria that were matched to this species after it was recognized as distinct. Is this another Sleeping Beauty? Will it also remain dormant for 30 (or more?) years until who-knows-what wakes it?

The photo of the plant, I can not see it, what could be the reason for this.

Reading closely: "but eventually the descriptive appellation 'albino Venosa' was used."

There is a Disa venosa (that grows with Disa racemosa), for which the Stewardt et al. 1982 entry (p: 138-9) reads:
Rare in swampy areas in w Cape, from sea-level to 1000m, colections are usually made after fires from fairly large populations.

In googling the topic I see that Steve Johnson has studied the two species co-occurrence - have requested a reprint, and if interesting will add a note hereunder.

the locality is quite well described in the original article and that particular swamp did not burn in last year or this year's fires. I estimate the veld to be about 10-12 years old, so it is ready for a fire, and it may be worthwhile to anticipate some plants soon. (the area that burned last year was up to the ridge to the north and up to the river above the waterfall - this area did not burn (and this years fire was much further north)).

As noted: the actual old locality just below the waterfall did not burn - it is about 15 years old.
The fire above the waterfall was a year ago, so if it is only the the year after the fire it is too late: the populations of D. racemosa were all pink in the wetlands east of the Baviaans River above the waterfall in February.