Cyanotis pachyrrhiza Oberm.

Perennials forming mats; with purple colouring and soft patent white pubescence on leaves and flowering stems. Roots long, thick, c. 3 mm in diam., tapered below, white (dark when dried), emerging from a small compact root-crown. Leaf-cluster with 5-7 erect linear leaves up to 150 x 8 mm. Fertile shoots 4-5-noded, erect or spreading, up to c. 200 mm long, bearing few-to many-flowered axillary cymes, pedunculate or sessile; subtending spathe long and narrow, recurved, not enveloping cyme, occasionally spathe short; bracteoles short. Calyx with lobes fused at the base, c. 7 mm long. Corolla just exserted from calyx, maroon ('petunia violet': Ridgway), lobes semi-erect, triangular. Stamens with maroon, beaded hairs, filaments white, fusiform near apex, anthers yellow. Style fusiform below stigma. Capsule subquadrate, sparsely hairy in upper half; seeds oblong-globose, c. 1.5 mm long, wrinkled.