Plants mostly 100-250 mm high, usually 4-to 6-branched; stem compressed, angled and 2-winged, wings irregularly serrated. Corm 10-15 mm diam., broadly obconic; tunics brown, lightly ridged vertically, basal rim with short, spreading spines 1-2 mm long. Leaves several, lowermost longest, linear to falcate, ribbed, shorter or longer than stem; remaining leaves cauline, progressively shorter, not or barely ribbed, often subtending branches, upper becoming bract-like. Inflorescences (2-)4-to 8-flowered spikes; outer bract green or flushed red, (10-)14-20(-25) mm long, keeled, acute, margins often reddish, keel crisped or minutely serrate; inner bract transparent with 2 green keels, 1/2-2/3 as long as outer, forked at apex. Flowers zygomorphic, white to pale yellow or beige, purple or rarely pink, usually red or pink on reverse of tepals and tube, lower tepals each with red spot in midline, throat marked with fine red lines inside and out, decurrent on lower part of tube; perianth tube obliquely funnel-shaped, 30-65 mm long, narrow and cylindric below, abruptly expanded into wide upper part up to 10 mm long; tepals usually unequal (rarely subequal), all straight below and continuing upper part of tube as a tepal cup, then spreading horizontally, upper 3 largest, 20-24 x 7-12 (subsp. fabricii), 15-18 x 7-10 mm (subspp. compressa and purpurascens), lower 3 with claws ± 4 mm long, limbs 10-20 x 3.0-7.5 mm, each often with short claw, bearing claw-like cusp arching over limb base. Stamens unilateral, arched; filaments 6-10 mm long (subspp. compressa and purpurascens) or 10-17 mm long (subsp. fabricii), exserted 3-7 mm from upper part of tube and 1-3 mm from tepal cup; anthers 3-5 mm long, dark purple; pollen purple. Style arching over stamens; branches 3-5 mm long, usually dividing near middle of anthers, forked for 1/2 their length, recurved. Capsules oblong, 10-12 mm long, apices of locules forming ear-like lobes decurrent on low locular ridges. Seeds globose, flattened at chalazal end, 1.2-1.3 mm diam.
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Cormous geophyte, 150-250 mm tall, stem often many-branched, corm tunics dark brown, margins with minute to prominent spines. Leaves linear-sword-shaped, ribbed. Flowers in a few-flowered spike, large, cream to pink with red markings on the lower tepals, perianth tube elongate-funnel-shaped, lower tepals each with a median, claw-like tooth, bracts often serrated on keels.
A corm or bulb plant. It grows 15-25 cm tall. The stem can have many branches. The coating over the corm is dark brown and with small spines along the edges. There are a few flowers in a spike and these are cream to pink with some red marks. They are tube shaped.
Cormous geophyte, 15-25 cm. Leaf blades ribbed. Flowers long-tubed with deep wide throat, large, white to yellowish (rarely purple) with red markings on lower tepals, reddish outside, lower tepals with arching, claw-like appendages.
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