Moraea karroica Goldblatt

Plants usually small, 150-300 mm high. Corm 10-15 mm diam.; tunics of coarse, wiry black fibres. Stem usually flexed below each node, usually several-branched, bearing attenuate sheathing leaves 30-60 mm long. Foliage leaf usually solitary, basal (rarely 2 or 3, these cauline), linear, erect, often trailing distally, exceeding stem, channelled, 4-7 mm wide. Rhipidial spathes attenuate, inner initially 35-70 mm long, elongating in fruit to enclose ripening capsules, outer ± 1/2 as long. Flowers salmon-orange, tepal limbs with a dark band near bases surrounding yellow zone, spreading, claws forming a wide cup 6-7 mm deep; outer tepals ± ovate, 18-24 x 7-8 mm, claws 5-6 mm long, ascending, inner tepals slightly smaller, obovate. Filaments united in a slender column 7-9 mm long, tapering slightly towards apex from wider base, smooth or sparsely and minutely papillate; anthers erect, contiguous, 3.0-3.5 mm long, after anthesis 2.0-2.5 mm long, yellow; pollen yellow. Ovary ± cylindric, 10-12 mm long; style branches short, 1.5-2.0 mm long, obscured by anthers, bifurcate, apices emerging between anthers; crests absent. Capsules ± cylindric, 9-15 mm long, usually enclosed by elongated inner spathe.