Plants 120-300(-500) mm high. Corm ± bell-shaped to obconic with flat base, 10-15 mm diam.; tunics of ± woody, overlapping layers, margins slightly flared, irregularly broken with edges frayed. Stem unbranched, sheathed at base by a pale, membranous cataphyll. Leaves usually 4, lower 2 ± basal, blades either terete and hollow or plane, straight, ± erect, falcate, sometimes with margins undulate to crisped, < half as long as stem, upper leaves cauline, shorter, the uppermost entirely sheathing. Spike straight, remote from leaves, up to 20-flowered; bracts green, often red-tipped, 5-7(-9) mm long, inner sometimes slightly longer than outer. Flowers crepuscular, ascending to half nodding, ± salver-shaped, white with outer tepals flushed red or brown outside; perianth tube straight, cylindric, 4-6 mm long; tepals subequal, obovate, 4-7(-9) mm long, spreading. Filaments diverging, ± 2 mm long; anthers spreading parallel to tepals, 3.5-4.5 mm long, white. Style branches ± 3 mm long, laxly spreading. Capsules narrowly ovoid, 7-9 mm long. Seeds angular-prismatic with ± white, spongy testa.
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Cormous geophyte, 12-35 cm, corm with flat base. Leaves terete and hollow or lanceolate to falcate and margins sometimes crisped. Flowers small, white, dark on reverse, sweetly cinnamon-scented especially in the evening.
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