Plants 30–70 cm. high.. Rhizome short, moniliform, bearing fibres from previous leaves; roots thick and spongy throughout, or narrow near the base and enlarging into very long, conspicuous tubers.. Leaves rosulate, erect or sometimes falcate with clasping bases, canaliculate, glabrous, often bluish to greyish green, narrowly lanceolate to linear, 20–40 cm. long, 1–3 cm. wide, margin undulate, cataphylls with a hyaline margin.. Peduncle erect, leafless, 15–40 cm.. Inflorescence a simple raceme; rhachis glabrous; floral bracts short, indistinct.. Pedicels articulated in upper half, glabrous, ± 1 cm. at anthesis, elongating with age, solitary at the nodes.. Flowers conspicuous, zygomorphic; tepals white with pale green midrib, 15–20 mm. long, 2–3mm. wide, 3-veined, constricted and thus forming an urceolate structure around the ovary, outer parts of tepals reflexed at anthesis.. Stamens longer than the perianth, exserted; filaments declinate, up to 15 mm.; anthers 2–4 mm., twisted after anthesis.. Style declinate, exserted, as long as the stamens.. Capsule with remnants of the perianth at the base, triquetrous, emarginate, variable in size, but often very large, (7–)10–20 mm. long, usually distinctly longer than wide.. Seeds disc-shaped, 3–5 mm. in diameter.. Fig. 6.
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