Bulb deep seated, narrowly to broadly ovate, 100-130 mm diam.; outer tunics hard and brittle, rust-coloured, splitting ultimately into numerous vertical segments with raised transverse bands forming a neck. Leaves (3-)4-6, appearing after the inflorescence, recurved and spreading, finally prostrate: blade broadly lorate, 210-420 mm long, 50-110 mm broad, flat, light green, leathery; abaxial surface marked with fine angular red speckles; margin with a white to rusty, soft or chaffy fringe. Peduncle flattened, 200-280 mm long, 20-50 mm across greatest diam., pale yellowish-green, glabrous. Spathe valves 2, oblong, 40-75 mm long, 20-50 mm wide, yellowish-green, soon becoming withered and reflexed. Umbel large, globose, 200-400 mm across. Flowers 40-220, small, pale yellow, becoming light brown at the tips. Pedicels rigid, 70-200 mm long, ageing to pale maroon, trigonous. Perianth tube 1-2 mm long; segments reflexed, lanceolate, 9-14 mm long, 2 mm wide, usually undulate near the base; tips acute. Filaments declinate, 8-12 mm, with a large swelling at the base, yellow basally, maroon distally. Anthers 2 mm long when open, maroon with yellow pollen. Ovary trigonous, 3 mm across, dark green to reddish. Style more or less straight, about 5-8 mm long, yellowish. Capsule trigonous, membranous, about 10 mm across. Seeds globose, fleshy, about 5 mm diam.
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Bulbous geophyte, up to 0.5 m tall. Leaves 4-6, dry at flowering, prostrate, margins bristly. Flowers as many as ± 200, small, pale yellow, curved downwards.
Like C. guttata but flowers pale yellow to maroon, ± zygomorphic with stamens declinate.
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