Hessea monticola Snijman

Bulb solitary or occasionally producing bulblets, deep-seated, globose to depressed-globose, 20-40 mm diam., thinly covered with light brown parchment-like fibrous tunics, extended into a neck 60-20 mm long. Leaves absent at anthesis, (1)2(3), erect to spreading, narrowly lorate, 50-250 x 1.5-3.0 mm, hemiterete to somewhat canaliculate, glabrous, flushed with red basally, subtended by a subterranean amplexicaul cataphyll and non-amplexicaul prophyll. Inflorescence clustered to hemispherical, 80-220 mm across; scape somewhat flexuose, 50-150(-220) mm long, 2-5 mm diam., green, breaking loose at ground level during fruiting; spathe valves linear-lanceolate, 25-40 x 4-7 mm; bracteoles up to 15 mm long. Flowers (7-)10-30(-40), spreading, stellate, white to pink with deeper pink to reddish pink stripes leading into the throat as well as towards the base of the undersurface, ageing to light brown, with a strong acrid scent; pedicels straight, 35-60(-95) mm long, green. Tepals adnate proximally to the staminal tube for 0.5-1.5(-3.0) mm, outspread above, oblong-lanceolate, 10-18(-25) x 2.5-5.0(-6.0) mm, with crisped edges. Stamens shorter than the tepals by 3.5-8.0(-14.0) mm; filaments shortly connate basally into a tube extending to 1 mm above the perigone throat, becoming outspread and subulate above; anthers centrifixed, up to 3 mm long and wine-red before opening; pollen cream-coloured. Ovary with 2-6 ovules per locule. Style up to 7(-9) mm long, slender throughout, with nectar accumulating in a well around the base. Seeds 3-4 mm diam. Flowering usually after recent veld fires.