Hessea breviflora Herb.

Bulb solitary, subglobose, 20-40 mm diam., thickly covered with felt-like tunics, extended into a stout neck up to 140 mm long. Leaves absent or emergent at anthesis, 2(-3), lorate, erect to spreading, up to 70-220 x (4-)5-13(-16) mm, canaliculate towards the base, shiny green to somewhat glaucous, becoming flushed with red proximally, glabrous, subtended by an amplexicaul cataphyll and subterranean non-amplexicaul prophyll; cataphyll initially reddened and exserted to 25 mm above ground, later turning brown and dying down. Inflorescence usually dense and widely spreading, 25-130 mm across; scape straight or flexuose, deflexed laterally, 50-200 mm long, 2-3 mm diam. green to leaden-grey, reddened towards the base, breaking off at the base in fruit; spathe valves lanceolate, 10-30 x 3-5 mm; bracteoles up to 10 mm long. Flowers 10-55, spreading, stellate, rarely somewhat hypocrateriform, pale to deep pink, sometimes flushed with deeper pink towards the centre, ageing to light brown, sometimes scented; pedicels straight, 20-55 mm long, green to glaucous. Tepals adnate to the filament tube for 0.5-3.5(-4.0) mm, rarely 4.5-6.5 mm in cultivation, outspread above, oblong-lanceolate, 5.5-2.0 x 1.5-4.0 mm, with plane edges. Stamens ranging from 2(-3) mm shorter to 2 mm longer than the tepals, becoming outspread; filaments connate basally into a tube reaching 1.0-1.0(-4.5) mm beyond the perigone throat thereby either equalling or exceeding the length of the perigone tube, subulate above; anthers centrifixed, 2.0-2.5 mm long and dark wine-red before opening; pollen cream-coloured. Ovary with up to 3 ovules per locule. Style up to 5-16 mm long, narrowly subtriquetrous throughout, with nectar collecting in a well around the base. Seed 3-4 mm diam. Chromosome number 2n = 22 or occasionally 22 + 1B, 22 + 1-3B.