Aristea cantharophila Goldblatt & J.C.Manning

Plants 200-400 mm high, forming tufts. Stems oval to elliptic in section, usually unbranched, bearing 1 or 2 sessile lateral flower clusters. Leaves linear, reaching to ± middle of stem, 2-4 mm wide. Flower clusters 2 or 3, sessile except the terminal, each 2-to 4-flowered; spathes greenish with translucent margins, becoming dry from apex, 20-28 mm long, bracts dry-membranous, ± 10 mm long, membranous. Flowers on pedicels 8-10 mm long, pale lilac, mauve, or whitish with a dark greenish black central eye 6-7 mm diam. grading to turquoise at edges, reverse of outer tepals greenish along midlines and the right halves flushed beige; tepals obovate, 22-26 x 12-15 mm, outer three slightly smaller than inner. Filaments ± 5 mm long; anthers ± 5.5 mm long; pollen orange. Ovary cylindric-trigonous, curving outward, 15-18 mm long, rapidly elongating after fertilisation; style 12-15 mm long, stigma lobes broad, fringed. Capsules cylindric, deeply 3-lobed in cross section, woody, indehiscent, (25-)35-50(-60) mm long. Seeds many per locule in a single vertical row, obliquely truncate, surface smooth.