Moraea alpina Goldblatt

Plants 50-120 mm high. Corm 7-10 mm diam.; tunics of fine, light brown fibres. Stem few-branched or simple; contracted, sheathing leaves green or becoming dry and brown. Foliage leaf absent or emergent at flowering, attached to corm not flowering stem, when fully developed slender, terete, 0.5 mm diam. Rhipidial spathes usually green with translucent margins, attenuate, inner ± 25 mm long, outer ± 2/3 as long. Flowers fugaceous, dark blue to violet, outer tepal limbs with yellow nectar guides at bases, claws ascending, limbs reflexed to ± 35º; outer tepals ± 12-15 x 3-4 mm; inner tepals shorter and narrower than outer. Filaments ± 6 mm long, united in lower ± 1.5 mm; anthers ± 3 mm long, yellow. Ovary obovoid, ± 4 mm long; style branches ± 6 mm long, style crests ± 1.5 mm long. Capsules ± obovoid to subglobose, ± 5 mm long. Seeds angular.