Moraea verecunda Goldblatt

Plants usually small, 150-200 mm high, occasionally growing in clumps, often with collar of fibres around base. Corm 12-15 mm diam.; tunics of blackish fibres often accumulating in a thick layer. Stem flexuose, often with 1 or 2 branches from below, rhipidia in upper axils sessile, sheathing leaves attenuate, partly to entirely dry and brown at anthesis, 15-20 mm long. Foliage leaf solitary, basal, up to 250 mm long, linear, narrowly channelled, margins tightly inrolled (often evidently terete but with narrow adaxial groove), often trailing distally. Rhipidial spathes becoming dry and straw-coloured, inner 15-20 mm long, outer ± 2/3 as long. Flowers fugaceous, violet, tepal limbs of both whorls with small yellow nectar guides at bases, ± spreading, claws ± 1.8 mm long, ascending to form a shallow cup; tepals lanceolate, outer 10-13 x 4-5 mm, inner 9-12 x ± 3 mm. Filaments 3-4 mm long, united below in a slender, smooth column, free and diverging near apices; anthers ± 2 mm long before dehiscence, later 1.2-1.5 mm long, suberect, yellow; pollen yellow. Ovary narrowly ellipsoid, 4.5-6.0 mm long, exserted; style branches ± 1.5 mm long, appressed to anthers, reaching to ± middle anther level, forked and stigmatic apically, crests lacking. Capsules ellipsoid, 10-12 mm, long, beaked in upper 1 mm. Seeds brown, ± ovoid, 1.8-2.0 mm diam.