Plants 6-19 cm tall, sometimes in small clumps. Corm somewhat globose, 6-14 mm diam., with a leathery, fibreless, brown covering or softly fibrous; roots loosely spreading. Cataphylls membranous, up to 35 mm long. Leaves 2-6, sheathing at base up to 4 cm, suberect to recurved, linear to narrowly lorate, 60-180 x 1-4 mm, shallowly canaliculate, pale green, soft-textured, margin smooth. Inflorescences 1 or 2 in flower at a time, (1)2-flowered, as long as or longer than leaves; scape up to 20 x 2 mm, flattened, usually hidden amongst leaves; bracts (1)2, clasping pedicels up to 3/4 of length, lanceolate, attenuate towards apex, 14-40 x 1-5 mm, pale green, translucent-edged or entirely translucent, soft-textured. Flowers pedicellate, stellate, yellow, backed with green in outer whorl, unscented; pedicels suberect, remaining so in fruit, 50-175 x 0.7-1.0 mm, green to reddish brown; tepals 6, narrowly elliptical, 3.5-12.0 mm long, outer 1.5-3.5 mm wide, minutely mucronate, inner 0.7-3.0 mm wide. Stamens 6, erect, outer often slightly shorter than inner, yellow; filaments inserted on ovary rim, outer 1.2-1.5 mm long, inner 1.5-1.7 mm long, both whorls usually as long as anthers; anthers oblong, latrorse, 1.2-2.0 x 0.5 mm, basal lobes up to 0.3 mm long; pollen yellow. Ovary narrowly to broadly obconical, 4.5-9.0 x 2.0-5.0 mm, 3-locular; style ca. 1 mm long; stigma branches erect, narrowly triangular, 2.2-3.0 x ca. 0.7 mm, with recurved basal lobes, 0.5-1.0 mm long, shorter than to equalling stamens, yellow, densely papillose. Capsules obconical, sometimes curved, up to 14 x 3.5-5.5 mm, dehiscence circumscissile. Seeds depressed ellipsoid, 0.4 x 0.4 mm; testa glossy or matt black, of transversally widened cells in ca. 31 longitudinal rows, outer periclinal cell walls shallowly conical with obtuse apex. Flowering period: late-August-September.
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