Moraea carnea Goldblatt

Plants 400-500 mm high, solitary. Corm ± 15 mm diam.; tunics of moderately fine fibres. Stem sheathed below by irregularly broken brown cataphylls, unbranched, bearing 3 or 4 overlapping sheathing leaves 40-80 mm long, green with dry acuminate apices. Foliage leaf linear, longer than stem, 5-6 mm wide, channelled, erect or bent and trailing distally. Rhipidial spathes green with brown attenuate tips, inner 70-100 mm long, outer ± 2/3 as long. Flower long-lived, yellowish pink to creamy pink with dark pink to brown veins, outer tepal limbs with yellow nectar guides at bases edged with dark pink and style crests uniformly deep pink to purple; outer tepals 55-60 x 20-25 mm, claws ± 25 mm long, limbs laxly spreading; inner tepals 45-50 x 10 mm, suberect. Filaments 10-12 mm long, united in lower 2/3, diverging above; anthers ± 10 mm long. Ovary ± cylindric, ± 20 mm long; style branches 15-17 mm long, crests up to 15 mm long. Capsules cylindric-3-lobed, ± 25 mm long, shortly beaked. Seeds unknown.