Pauridia aquatica (L.F.) Snijman & Kocyan

Aquatic plants (8.5-)15.5-39.0(-67.5) cm tall. Corm depressed-globose, 5-27 mm diam., nearly fibreless or loosely fibrous, old corms rarely persisting somewhat laterally; fibres soft, straight, brown, forming a short neck; roots spreading from near corm base. Cataphylls usually absent at flowering. Leaves up to 5, conspicuously sheathing and more or less thin-textured for up to 2-8 cm from base, tapering upwards, erect, linear, 110-450 x 2.0-4.5 mm, subtrigonous proximally, subterete above, shiny green, apex acute; mesophyll spongy, aerenchymatous. Inflorescences usually 2 or 3 in flower at a time, 2-7-flowered, shorter than leaves; scape 20-219 x 2-4 mm, compressed adaxially, pale green, sometimes speckled with red; bracts 2-7, spreading, clasping pedicels at base, lanceolate, canaliculate, 15-60 x 4-8 mm, pale green, thin-textured, margin membranous, apex acute. Flowers pedicellate, stellate, white, rarely yellowish near centre of inner tepals, green-backed, occasionally red-striped on outer tepals, sometimes scented; pedicels spreading, often down-turned in fruit, laterally compressed, 15-25-60(-100) x 0.7-1.5 mm, pale green; tepals elliptical to lanceolate, 5-17(-36) mm long, outer 3.5-5.5(-10.0) mm wide, mucronate, inner 2.5-3.5(-8.5) mm. Stamens 6, subequal or inner slightly shorter than outer, suberect to inwardly arched; filaments inserted on ovary close to tepals, 0.5-1.5(-2.5) mm long, shorter than anthers, white; anthers oblong-elliptic, latrorse, 2-4(-8) x 1.5 mm, basal lobes 0.25 mm long, obtuse, apex emarginate; pollen yellow. Ovary subcylindrical, 4-13 x 2 mm, shortly beaked for up to 0.3(-0.6) mm, mostly 3-locular, becoming 1-locular distally, pale green, often red-lined; style 1.5 mm long, greenish white; stigma branches spreading, narrowly ovate, 2.5-8.0 x 1.5 mm, distinctly broader than style, shorter than or rarely exceeding stamens, green or white, densely papillose. Capsules spreading to down-turned, subcylindrical, often curved, 5-18 x 2.5-3.5 mm, shortly beaked for less than 1 mm, walls splitting open lengthwise close to septa. Seeds ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm diam.; testa black to dark brown, smooth or minutely colliculate, with elevations in contiguous, longitudinal rows. Flowering period: (June-)July-October(-November).