Moraea pallida (Baker) Goldblatt

Plants 120-400 mm high, slender to robust. Corms 10-20 mm diam., sometimes with cormlets at base; tunics of black, wiry, coarse fibres. Stem straight or sometimes weakly flexed below nodes, several-branched, branches flexed below rhipidia; sheathing leaves attenuate with dry attenuate tips, 30-50 mm long. Foliage leaf solitary, basal, usually sheathing lower part of stem, distally falcate or suberect, often bent and trailing distally, channelled, longer than stem, usually 5-15 mm wide. Rhipidial spathes acute-attenuate, inner 35-50(-60) mm long, outer slightly shorter. Flowers fugaceous, yellow (rarely pink), tepal limbs with deep yellow nectar guides minutely speckled dark green at bases, spreading, claws erect, clasping filament column; outer tepals 18-24(-27) x 5-8(-12) mm long, claws narrow, ± 3 mm long, limbs ± oblong to obovate; inner tepals smaller, narrowly obovate, 5-8 mm wide. Filaments 5-7 mm long, united below in a smooth, cylindric column, free in upper 1.5-2.0 mm and diverging; anthers straight, arching inward after anthesis, 4-6 mm long, exceeding stigmas, yellow; pollen yellow. Ovary ± 10 mm long, ± cylindric; style branches diverging, 5-6 x ± 1 mm, stigma bilobed, crests ± 1 mm long, erect or arching inward. Capsules club-shaped, 10-20 mm long. Seeds angular, light brown.