Moraea barnardiella Goldblatt

Plants acaulescent, up to 50 mm high, including flowers. Corm up to 18 mm diam.; tunics of brown, knotted fibres. Stem underground at flowering. Leaves lowermost inserted below ground shortly above corm, others in a basal cluster, channelled, 40-60 mm long, margins undulate to slightly crisped, minutely ciliate. Rhipidial spathes not distinct from leaves; with 2 to 5 flowers per plant. Flowers fugaceous, salver-shaped, purple-pink with dark purple-black centre; perianth tube 15-30 mm long, cylindric, purple-black; tepals spreading from base, broadly obovate, obtuse or bluntly acute, mostly 18-25 mm long, outer 10-14 mm wide, inner tepals slightly narrower. Filaments 4.0-6.5 mm long, united below in cylindric column, free and diverging in distal 1-2 mm; anthers 3.0-3.5 mm long, curving upward distally, exceeding style branches, yellow; pollen yellow. Ovary ovoid, ± 4 mm long; style dividing opposite apex of filament column, branches short, bearing broad, erect, undulate stigmatic lobes appressed to each other. Capsules and seeds unknown.