Thank you all for your comments, and I will as many suggest work with a curve mask to see if I can improve it.
I'm posting the whole image from which the detail was taken. I am more pleased with this image contrast and conversion - wise. As for the background, I did try to hide it because it was pretty distracting. I did walk around that tree for some while trying to get a pleasing flower shape and bg, but was only partly successful.
What an intriguing flower, I'm not familiar with it but it's beautiful.
You could go totally high contrast with this one, or if it is out in direct sunlight either wait for a cloud to pass over or use a scrim to level out the bright light so that you naturally get a more full range of tones without having to do a whole lot of gyrations with Photoshop that can introduct artificial looking effects. (which can be good or bad depending on how it turns out...)
Definitely worth exploring it for the great shapes and patterns. I like your crop selection of the first image from the original.
Love the image. Looks like the petals are fingers trying to reach for something. But I would prefer a little more texture in the image like skip suggested
