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Twining, cryptic geophyte. Stem solitary, produced annually, up to 1 m long; produced from fascicled rootstock. Leaves linear-lanceolate to filiform, 10-20(-70) x 5-10 mm. Flowers 1-3 in a cyme, laterally at node; peduncle ± 10 mm long; pedicels ± 10 mm long. Corolla cylindrically urceolate, 50-60 mm long; tube curved (up to 90°), 30-40 mm long with ovoid to ellipsoid basal inflation, ± 12 mm in diam., expanded at throat to a diam. of 8-10 mm; lobes narrowly linear, base deltoid; margins folded back, ± 20 mm long, connivent above, forming a box-like cage over tube mouth; tube pale green, white-keeled down inner face, veins inside swollen base tuberculate, longitudinal veins dull purple. Corona: interstaminal corona lobes dorso-ventrally compressed, spreading out and upwards, connate to form a cup-like structure around staminal curtain, with a widely U-shaped cleft; outer margins on both sides extended into a purple filiform/linear appendage ± 3 mm long; staminal corona lobes fused basally to form 5 nectar pockets, free portion narrowly linear, erect, ± 2 mm long, forming a loose circle around style-stigma-head, which it greatly overtops.
Perennial herb, 150-800 mm long, cluster of fibrous succulent roots. Stem annual, twining, sparsely branched; glabrous. Leaves with blade filiform, linear to narrowly ovate, ± 70 x 10 mm, herbaceous. Flowers: pedunculate, develop successively from same node; corona united at base, outer lobes forming 5 pockets within, upright and divided for 2/3 into linear lobules slightly thickened at purplish apex, with few long hairs round base; inner lobes incumbent erect, ± 2 mm long; corolla up to 60 mm long, tube up to 40 mm, straight or slightly curved with oblong-elliptic basal inflation up to 12 mm wide, narrowed to ± 3 mm above and expanding to 8-10 mm at throat, pale green with purple longitudinal venation; lobes twisted at first, up to 20 mm long, spreading-erect with apical 2 mm connate, narrowly linear from deltoid base, replicate, with white keel down inner face of lower half, otherwise dark purple; Oct.-Apr. Fruit a follicle.
Slender climber, up to 0.8 m tall, stems 1 mm diam. Leaves linear. Flowers 1-3, opening in succession in extra-axillary clusters, on peduncles up to ± 10 mm long. Corolla 50-60 mm long, grey mottled with purple outside, lobes white with blackish margins, fused and twisted together at tips. Corona white, outer lobes bifid into erect lobules with swollen tips, inner erect in a central slender column.
A herb that keeps growing from year to year. It grows 15-80 cm long. There are clusters of fibrous succulent roots. The stem re-grows each year and is twining. The leaves are narrow and 7 cm long by 1 cm wide. The flowers hang down and develop from each node.
