Small spreading, diffusely branched, glabrescent bushes (chamaephytes) up to c. 0.3 m tall. Rootstock woody, gnarled, knobbly (the knobs presenting remains of swollen bases of annual stems); roots woody, long, initially covered by roothairs. Stems several, erect, with long internodes up to 60-100 mm long, 1-2 mm in diam. Leaves with lamina linear, flat, 80-100 x 4-10 mm, attenuated at base into a pseudo-petiole, white-punctulate; sheath membranous, sub-auriculate. Flowering spathe solitary (rarely 2), terminal, sessile or nearly so, fused, shortly triangular, 15 mm long, 10 mm broad, apex short, acute, minutely puberulous and with scattered white setae. Cyme solitary. Flowers small, petals blue or white ('pink' fide Galpin 808). Sepals ovate, c. 5 mm, membranous, upper minute. Petals: upper ones rounded, c. 15 mm, lower one minute. Stamens typical, the anthers occasionally with dark margins, the central semicircular; staminodes with yellow, bulbous antherodes. Capsule with globose, shiny, cream-coloured locules; seeds globose, 5 mm in diam., smooth, farinaceous, dorsal seed occasionally aborted.
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Perennial herb, 0.12-0.30 m high; with several erect stems, diffusely branched; rootstock knobby. Leaves linear, flat, 80-100 x 4-10 mm, base attenuate into pseudo-petiole; sheath membranous, subauriculate. Spathe solitary, terminal, subsessile, puberulous. Inflorescence with solitary cyme. Flowers blue or rarely white; upper petals rounded, lower one minute. Stamens: anthers occasionally marked with dark margins; staminodes with yellow bulbous antherodes. Flowering time Dec.-Mar. Fruit a capsule with globose, shiny, cream-coloured locules.
Dwarf, glabrescent shrub, up to 300 mm tall. Capsule triangular with all 3 locules dehiscent. Cymes 1 in each spathe. Spathes solitary, rarely with a younger one above. Leaves flat, narrowly linear, ± 4 mm broad, tapered into a sheath. Plants tenuous, saxicolous. Flowers blue or white.
A herb. It is slender, wiry and straggling. It grows 60 cm tall. The leaves are widely spaced. They are very narrow and folded. They are 5-10 cm long. The flower petals are white or blue.
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