Flower spikes forming Crocosmia aurea inflorescences start off with buds ascending in two neatly compact, opposite arrays in each spike. Each bigger (lower) bud in a spike has a little more of the colouring that will make the mature flower.

The open flower in picture has more yellow on the outside surfaces of the inner whorl of tepals than on the more recurved, redder, outer ones.

There is a papery bract at the base of each branched spike in the inflorescence (Manning, 2009; Pooley, 1998; Moriarty, 1997; iNaturalist).