Moraea herrei (L.Bolus) Goldblatt

Plants 6-14 mm high. Corm up to 20 mm diam.; tunics of dark brown fibres, vertical members heavily thickened, accumulating in a dense mass, extending upward as a collar around base. Stem simple or few-branched near base, usually bearing 1 to several sessile lateral rhipidia, sheathing leaves ± 15 mm long, ± dry at flowering. Foliage leaf solitary, basal, terete, ± straight and falcate to loosely or tightly coiled in corkscrew-fashion. Rhipidial spathes dry, pale brown, inner 15-20 mm long, outer 2/3 to ± as long, margins membranous. Flowers fugaceous, nearly sessile, perianth borne on an ovary tube, blue-mauve to violet, inner and outer tepal limbs with small yellow nectar guides at bases; outer tepals ± 14, claws short, ± 4 mm long, forming a cup including filament column, limbs spreading ± horizontally, 10 x 7 mm, inner with limbs 9 x 6 mm. Filaments ± 5.5 mm long, united in a slender column minutely scabrid in lower half, free and diverging in upper ± 1 mm; anthers ± 3.5 mm long, white, initially concealing style branches; pollen pale yellow. Ovary cylindric, 12-15 mm long, fertile in lower ± 5 mm, prolonged distally as a sterile, tubular beak; style branches short, ± 1 mm long, dividing into two diverging, narrow, apically stigmatic arms without crests, reaching to middle of anthers. Capsules and seeds unknown.