Moraea worcesterensis Goldblatt

Plants 120-250 mm high, with fibrous collar around base. Corm globose, 15-20 mm diam.; tunics of brown, coarse fibres, often thickened into claw-like ridges, eventually accumulating in a dense mass. Stem simple or 1-branched, straight or flexed at upper nodes, sheathing leaves green in lower half, becoming dry and brown distally, attenuate, 30-40 mm long. Foliage leaf solitary, basal, linear, channelled, ± as long to ± twice as long as stem, ± 2.5 mm wide. Rhipidial spathes dry and dark brown above, attenuate, inner 28-35 mm long, outer ± 1/2 as long. Flowers long-lived, dark violet-purple, limbs of all tepals with small yellow nectar guides at bases, spreading horizontally; outer tepals 15-17 x ± 9 mm, claws diverging, ± 3 mm long; inner tepals 13-15 x 4-5 mm, claws diverging. Filaments 5-6 mm long, purple, united below, free in upper 2 mm; anthers ± 4 mm long, exceeding style branches, purple; pollen yellow. Ovary ± 5 mm long, ± cylindric, tapering toward base; style branches narrow, < 1 mm wide, diverging, appressed to opposed anther, bilobed apically, crests vestigial. Capsules narrowly obovoid, ± 10 mm long. Seeds angular, prismatic.