Moraea calcicola Goldblatt

Plants slender, 300-400 mm high. Corm 9-12 mm diam.; tunics of light brown, netted fibres. Stem simple or 1-branched, finely velvety, sheathing leaves green with dry, attenuate apices, 50-60 mm long. Foliage leaf solitary, basal, linear, channelled, exceeding the stem, villous on abaxial surface, 3-5 mm wide, often bent and trailing. Rhipidial spathes becoming dry from apices, attenuate, inner 50-70 mm long, outer ± 2/3 as long. Flowers long-lived, blue or mauve, becoming paler with age, outer tepal limbs with small dark blue, triangular nectar guides at bases or ± without nectar guides, claws densely covered with black hairs, faintly scented; outer tepals 23-35 x 27-32 mm, limbs 15-25 mm long, spreading horizontally, claws 8-10 mm long, narrowly diverging; inner tepals 14-22 mm long, 3-lobed, lateral lobes short, obtuse, central lobed elongate, extended ± horizontally. Filaments 2-3 mm long, united in a glabrous column, free in upper 0.5 mm; anthers 5.5-6.5 mm long, dark blue-violet; pollen orange. Ovary ± cylindric, 10-15 mm long; style branches inclined, 6-8 mm long, ± 6 mm at widest point, crests ± 4 mm long, margins irregularly serrated. Capsules ellipsoid, 18-24 mm long. Seeds pale straw-coloured, angular.