Moraea versicolor (salisb. ex Klatt) Goldblatt

Plants acaulescent, up to 40 mm high. Corm ± globose, 10-15 mm diam.; tunics of dark brown, reticulate fibres arranged in herringbone pattern, vertical ribs often thick and woody, often accumulating in a dense mass. Stem underground at flowering. Leaves in a basal tuft, lowermost inserted below ground shortly above corm, short and inconspicuous, laxly spreading to ± prostrate, lanceolate, widely channelled to flat, 30-50 x 3-6 mm, undulate, margins occasionally crisped, minutely ciliate. Rhipidial spathes hardly distinct from leaves, with up to 5 flowers per plant. Flowers fugaceous, salver-shaped with tepals cupped in lower half, pink to purple or red, usually yellow in cup with dark pigment at edge of cup and yellow stamens and style OR tepals dark blue to purple in centre and usually with purple-black stamens and style; perianth tube cylindric, (10-)18-27 mm long; tepals subequal, spreading distally, obovate, 14-22 x 7-14 mm. Filaments 5-6 mm long, united below in cylindric or bottle-shaped column slightly wider in lower half, free and ascending in distal 1.0-1.5 mm; anthers ± erect, 2.5-4.0 mm long, shorter after dehiscing, yellow or purple; pollen yellow. Ovary oblong-cylindric, ± 4 mm long; style straight, dividing 2-3 mm above anther tips into 3 short, spreading stigmatic lobes with undulate margins, yellow. Capsules and seeds unknown.