Plants 50-70 mm high, acaulescent. Corm ± globose, 10-15 mm diam.; tunics of pale straw-coloured, coarsely netted fibres with heavily thickened vertical ridges. Stem subterranean, bearing a single rhipidium. Leaves mostly 3 (including leaf-like outer spathe), ascending to spreading, loosely twisted below, often tightly so distally, channelled, grey-green, smooth, 40-80 mm long, margins thickened, undulate to crisped, usually minutely papillate, rarely ciliate. Rhipidia solitary, mostly 2(-4)-flowered; spathes smooth, inner 35-40 mm long. Flowers yellow or inner tepals and style crests pale yellow to white, outer tepal limbs with deeper yellow nectar guides at bases speckled with blue or black dots, spreading at ± 45°, inner tepal claws sometimes blue-grey and limbs often remaining suberect, scented of vanilla; outer tepals lanceolate, 18-28 x 6-8 mm, claws ascending, 9-11 mm long, channelled, shortly hairy in midline, inner tepals 18-28 mm long. Filaments 5-8 mm long, united for 1.5-2.0 mm, diverging distally; anthers 4.5-5.5 mm long, reaching to base of stigma lobes, pale blue; pollen white. Ovary elongate, fertile part oblong-cylindric, 5.0-7.5 mm long, partly included or exserted; style branches diverging, 7-10 mm long, crests erect, linear to narrowly wedge-shaped, 7-10 mm long. Capsules ovoid, 8-12(-15) mm long, retracted to ± base of spathes, near ground level. Seeds straw-coloured, angular-prismatic.
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