Hesperantha schelpeana Hilliard & B.L.Burtt

Plants 40-150 mm high, acaulescent, flowering without leaves. Corm ovoid-oblong, 10-15 mm diam.; tunics of relatively soft, brown, overlapping layers splitting above into slender cusps and below into segments. Stem underground, unbranched, sheathed. Leaves of flowering stem dry and often broken or lacking, foliage leaves produced after flowering on separate shoot, ultimately 2 or 3, basal leaf or leaves solitary or 2, falcate, ultimately 80-100 x 2-3 mm, probably centric and oval in section when alive, when dry main vein and margins appearing thickened, uppermost leaf entirely sheathing or with short unifacial tip. Spike 1-or 2(3)-flowered; bracts 10-22 mm long, green, often flushed purple. Flowers diurnal, salver-shaped, white to pink with dark throat, outer tepals sometimes tipped purple, feathered to uniformly red-purple to brown outside; perianth tube 5-10 mm long, narrowly funnel-shaped; tepals spreading, elliptic-ovate, 14-22 x 6-8 mm. Filaments erect, ± 1.5-3.0 mm long; anthers diverging, 6-8 mm long, yellow; pollen yellow. Style branches reaching to tips of anthers in closed flower. Capsules ovoid-oblong, 6-8 x 4-6 mm. Seeds flattened, narrowly winged, ± 2 x 1 mm.