Ornithoglossum gracile B.Nord.

Corm ovoid, simple, 2.5-3.5 cm broad, up to 4 cm long, with brown tunics apically protracted into a thick and firm neck up to 12 cm long. Cataphyll apically somewhat dilated, truncate. Stem above-ground part 2-10 cm high, simple. Leaves 3(-4), lanceolate, 3-10 cm long, 0.6-1.5 cm wide, erecto-patent, often with recurved tips, glaucous, much crisped-undulate. Raceme 1-9-flowered, contracted, corymb-like, over-topping the leaves. Bracts linear-lanceolate, mostly 1-2 cm long and up to 0.5 cm wide, lowermost ones larger and more leaf-like. Pedicels (3-)4-7 cm long, suberect-erecto-patent, almost straight with recurved tips, becoming spreading-recurved after anthesis. Perianth somewhat asymmetric with some segments spreading, others more or less reflexed, 2.5-3 cm in diam. Tepals 14-18 mm long; claw 2-3 mm long; blade 1.5-2.5 mm wide, but appearing narrower because of the involute margins, dull green, blackish when dry, indistinctly many-veined, subobtuse. Nectary margin tongue-like, ca. 1 mm long, entire. Filaments rather shorter than the tepals, 10-12 mm long, slender, but usually with a distinct hump-like swelling below the middle, uniformly whitish, or the upper half purplish-brown. Anthers 2.5-4 mm long, ca. 1 mm wide or somewhat less, slightly curved, dull brown (when dry). Styles 12-13 mm long, slender, at first straight, but soon curved, light-coloured. Ovary rounded-oblong. Capsule and seeds unknown.