Plants 5-26(-36) cm tall. Corm ovoid, often depressed basally, 7-20 mm diam., entirely covered with brown, often thickly layered, reticulate, fibrous tunics; fibres hard, firmly attached to basal disc, usually extended into a short, spreading, bristly neck distally up to 30 mm long, tips often pungent; roots dimorphic, mostly slender, some contractile, mostly straight, arising from proximal half of corm. Cataphylls up to 10 mm long. Leaves (2)3-8(-10), shortly sheathing at base up to 10(-25) mm, spreading to recurved, narrowly lorate, tapering gradually distally, often flexuose, especially on drying, 50-270 x 2-4(-6) mm, shallowly carinate, somewhat glistening green in sunlight, often black-veined proximally when old, epidermis large-celled. Inflorescences 2 or more in flower at a time, (1)2-flowered, most often exceeding leaves, occasionally slightly shorter; scape 15-65 x 1 mm, terete to slightly compressed, green to pinkish; bracts (1)2, clasping pedicels at base, lanceolate, 30-35 x (1.0-)2.5-4.0 mm, thin-textured, pale green proximally, translucent with pale green veins distally. Flowers pedicellate, stellate, yellow, backed with pale green, with a few red stripes on outer whorl, unscented; pedicels more or less spreading, terete, 30-150 x 1 mm, almost horizontal when fruiting, pale reddish green; tepals 6, lanceolate to narrowly elliptical, 9-12 mm long, outer 2.5-4.5 mm wide, mucronate, inner 1.5-3.0 mm wide. Stamens 6, subequal or outer slightly shorter than inner, suberect to slightly spreading, yellow; filaments inserted on ovary rim, outer 1.0-2.5 mm long, inner 1.0-2.5(-3.5) mm long, both whorls shorter than anthers; anthers oblong, latrorse, 3.0-6.5 mm long, basal lobes ca. 1.5 mm long, slightly diverging, apex notched up to 0.5 mm; pollen yellow. Ovary obconical, 4-5 x 2.5-3.0 mm, 3-locular; style stout, 1-2 mm long; stigma branches suberect, sagittate, often unequal, (2.5-)4.0-5.5(-6.5) x 1.5-2.5 mm broad at base, slightly shorter than to almost equalling stamens, yellow, densely papillose, basal lobes convolute and spreading. Capsules obconical, 4-10 x 3-4 mm, dehiscence circumscissile. Seeds ovoid, ca. 0.5 x 0.4 mm, dark brown to matt black, densely colliculate, epidermal cells arranged in ca. 30-35 longitudinal rows, anticlinal walls isodiametric to laterally widened, outer periclinal walls almost entirely convex and finely pitted. Flowering period: (June-)August-September(-October).
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Perennial geophyte, 50-250 mm high; corm covered with firm branched dark fibres (in W) to fine brown fibres (in E. Leaves 3-6(-9), recurved, 1-4 mm wide, soft, widely V-shaped in transect. Flowers 2 per scape, star-shaped; tepals 5-20 mm long, yellow with green backs; stigma branches with broad basal lobes; bracts 2, lanceolate, clasping pedicels at base, pale green with translucent margins, usually drying brown. Flowering time July-Sept.
Cormous geophyte, 6-25 cm, tunic fibres firm, often outwardly pointed at tips. Leaves 3-6(-9), spreading, lanceolate, keeled, soft-textured, occasionally undulate. Flowers (1)2(3), stellate, yellow, greenish to brownish beneath, bracts (1)2, lanceolate, membranous, pale to brownish.
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