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Plants mostly 150-300 mm high, excluding leaf. Corm 10-20 mm diam.; tunics of medium to coarse, dark brown fibres. Stem usually with 3 to 6 branches held close to main axis on short stalks or ± sessile, sheathing leaves 30-60 mm long, dry, papery, brown, often lacerated. Foliage leaf solitary, usually absent, dry and broken, or emergent at flowering, basal, ultimately up to 500 mm long or longer, terete, ribbed, ± 1.5 mm diam., becoming dry and broken before flowering. Rhipidial spathes dry, papery, rarely green near base, apices speckled darker brown, sometimes lacerate, attenuate; inner 25-40 mm long; outer ± 2/3 as long. Flowers fugaceous, pale blue-mauve, limbs of all tepals with yellow to orange nectar guides at bases; outer tepals obovate to lanceolate, 20-24 x 5-8 mm, claws slightly shorter than limbs, ascending, narrow; inner tepals 16-18 x ± 7 mm, lanceolate. Filaments 3-4 mm long united in lower 1/3; anthers ± 5 mm long, white or yellow. Ovary narrowly ellipsoid, ± 4.5 mm long; style branches 7-8 mm long, crests vestigial, shorter than stigma lobes. Capsules ± club-shaped, ± 10 mm long Seeds angular.
Flowers pale-lilac to blue-violet with yellow-orange spotted nectar guides on the outer tepals; tepals unequal, the outer 19–24 mm long with an ascending claw narrow and slightly shorter than the limb, limb c. 11–14 × 5–8 mm, obovate to lanceolate, reflexed; the inner tepals 15–18 × 2–4 mm, linear-lanceolate, erect or ascending.
Foliage leaf solitary, usually absent or beginning to emerge at flowering rime (dead leaf from previous season sometimes still attached to base of stem), eventually up to c. 60 cm long or more, c. 1.5 mm in diameter, terete, without an adaxial groove; sheathing leaves dry and brownish, 3–6 cm long, often apically lacerate.
Rhipidia sessile or on short branches concealed by the subtending sheathing leaves; spathes dry and papery, rarely green near the base, the inner (2.5)3–4 cm long with apices membranous speckled darker brown and sometimes lacerated, the outer usually about two-thirds as long as the inner.
Cormous herb, up to 300 mm tall. Green leaf lacking at flowering time. Flower with inner and outer tepals similar. Style crests reduced and vestigial, shorter than stigma lobes. Flowers pale lilac-blue with tepals having yellow nectar guides at base of limbs.
Corms 1–3 cm in diameter; tunics of medium to coarse, dark-brown fibres, cormlets often present amongst the fibres.
Style branches 7–8 mm long, diverging about 1.5 mm above the base; style crests narrow, 3–6 mm long.
Filaments 3–4 mm long, united in the lower third only, anthers 5–6 mm long.
Stem erect, usually 3–6-branched; branches held close to the main stem.
Capsules 8–11 mm long, obovoid.
Plants usually 15–25 cm high.
