Hessea incana Snijman

Bulb solitary, subglobose, 25-35 mm diam., with a dark brown parchment-like outer covering, extended into a stout neck up to 100 mm long. Leaves absent or when cultivated sometimes incipient at anthesis, (1-)2(-3), suberect or spreading, lorate, 80-200 x 3-8 mm, flattened, with minute retrorse hairs covering the abaxial surface and occasionally the adaxial surface, flushed with pink basally, subtended by a subterranean amplexicaul cataphyll and non-amplexicaul prophyll. Inflorescence usually densely hemispherical, 70-120 mm across; scape deflexed northwards, stout and fleshy, 60-90 mm long, 2-7 mm diam., wine-red to greenish, becoming dry and breaking off at the base in fruit; spathe valves broadly lanceolate, 20-40 x 8-20 mm; bracteoles up to 3 mm long. Flowers 20-70, spreading, stellate, pink with a deeper pink centre and median dorsal banding, ageing to light brown, faintly scented; pedicels straight, 30-55 mm long, stout, green to reddish brown. Tepals free to the base, outspread or sometimes slightly deflexed, ovate-lanceolate, 6-11 x 3-4-mm, plane. Stamens shorter than the tepals by 4-5 mm; filaments connate basally into a short tube up to 1.5 mm long, outspread and subulate above; anthers centrifixed, 2 mm long and dark wine-red before opening; pollen cream-coloured. Ovary with 3 or 4 ovules per locule. Style slender, up to 7 mm long with nectar collecting in a well around the base. Seeds about 3 mm diam. Occasionally H. incana has been seen flowering in the snow.