Hessea stenosiphon (Snijman) D.Müll.-doblies & U.Müll.-doblies

Bulbous perennial herb, up to 210 mm tall. Bulb solitary, deep-seated, subglobose, 12-30 mm across, with thin light brown parchment-like outer tunics, fleshy and whitish within, extended into a long slender neck up to 120 mm long. Leaves absent at anthesis or rarely persisting to anthesis, 2(-3), spreading, narrowly lorate, 60-300 x1.0-3.5 mm, glabrous, with the adaxial surface shallowly canaliculate, subtended by a subterranean non-amplexicaul prophyll, sometimes the first amplexicaul leaf with a reduced green blade. Inflorescence slightly spreading, 40-80 mm across; scape stiffly erect, 50-140 mm long, 1-2 mm diam., greyish pink to leaden-grey, breaking off at the base in fruit; spathe valves linear-lanceolate, 15-30 x 1-2 mm; bracteoles filiform, up to 5 mm long. Flowers 3-14, ascending, hypocrateriform, pale lemon-yellow or white, usually with a greenish to reddish brown tube, flushed dorsally with reddish brown to pink on the outer tepals, ageing to light brown, scentless; pedicels straight to upwardly curved, 35-60 mm long, green. Tepals recurving from a narrow 8-12 mm long tube (rarely up to 16 mm in cultivation in Europe), narrowly lanceolate, 6-8 x 2-3 mm, slightly channelled. Stamens in 2 unequal whorls, filaments basally connate into a greenish yellow tube extending to 0.5-1.0 mm above the perigone throat, free above, reduced to a 0.25 mm long filiform free tip in the outer whorl, prominent and spreading in the inner whorl; the inner filaments free for 3-4 mm, clavate in the distal half with a subulate tip; anthers more or less basifixed, about 2.5 mm long and maroon before opening; the outer anthers occluding the perigone throat after dehiscence; pollen cream-coloured. Ovary subglobose, 2-3 mm across, with up to 4-6 ovules per locule. Style erect, slender throughout, up to 5-11 mm long, remaining included in the perigone tube; stigma shortly trifid, shortly penicillate on the inner surfaces. Fruit a subglobose, papery, loculicidal capsule, 7.5 mm across. Seeds fleshy, ovoid, up to 2.5 mm across, reddish brown when ripe.