Plants small, to 20 cm high. Bulb solitary, depressed-globose, 45-55 mm across, covered with thinly fibrous tunics, cream-colored and fleshy within, extended into a slender neck to 60 mm long. Foliage leaves 5-6, absent at anthesis, distichous, suberect to recurved, narrowly ligulate, tapering gradually distally, canaliculate, somewhat succulent, to 30 cm x 3-4 mm, bright green, glabrous. Inflorescence 20-40-flowered, hemispherical, compact, 10-16 cm across; scape sigmoid, rigid, elliptical in cross section, 11-14 cm x 2.5-3.5 mm, reddish brown, breaking at ground level when dry; spathe valves 2, narrowly lanceolate, 35-55 x 3-5 mm, papery, wine-red; bracteoles filiform, to 10 mm long; pedicels radiating widely, straight, terete, 40-75 mm long, shiny green, turning straw-colored and rigid in fruit. Perigone strongly zygomorphic, pink, initially with whitish throat, aging to brown, scentless; tepals shortly connate proximally, oblong-lanceolate, falcate and upturned at anthesis, 17-22 x 4-6.5 mm, plane; filaments slightly declinate, filiform, 13-17 mm long, expanded and connate proximally into a short tube to 0.25 mm long; anthers dorsifixed, ca. 5 mm long and wine-red before opening; pollen whitish. Ovary dark wine-red; ovules 1 or rarely 2 per locule, absent from innermost flowers; style slender, declinate, ca. 20 mm long; nectar present around style base; stigma shortly trilobed. Capsule small, papery, loculicidally dehiscent, rapidly outgrown by seeds. Seeds ellipsoidal, succulent, 6-7 mm across, wine-red; testa with stomata. Flowering is limited to approximately three weeks in May depending on the advent of rain in autumn (probably until the end of April). The leaves appear in spring when growth is rapid and die back during a dry spell in summer.
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