Pauridia nana (Snijman) Snijman & Kocyan

Plants 9.5-35.0 cm tall. Corm somewhat globose, 4-10 mm diam., loosely covered with fine, brown, softly fibrous tunics; fibres reticulate, free from corm base; roots arising near corm base, slender and spreading or thick and contractile. Cataphylls membranous, up to 45 mm long. Leaves 2-6, sheathing up to ca. 10-30 mm above base, suberect to somewhat arched, narrowly lorate, 35-350 x 1.5-5.0 mm, carinate, pale green, soft and thin-textured, margin entire. Inflorescences 2 or more in flower at a time, 2-flowered, shorter or longer than leaves; scape 30-150 x 0.5-2.0 mm, compressed laterally, pale green with membranous lateral edges; bracts 2, clasping pedicels for most of length, lanceolate, 10-40 x 3-4 mm, foliaceous, shallowly keeled, inconspicuously nerved, pale green, translucent-edged. Flowers pedicellate, stellate, white or rarely creamy white, occasionally flushed pink, backed with pale green in outer whorl, unscented; pedicels suberect, 35-80 x 1 mm, spreading when fruiting, pale green; tepals 6, reflexed when fully open, narrowly lanceolate, 4-7(-10) mm long, outer 1.5-2.5 mm wide and mucronate, inner 1-2 mm wide. Stamens 6, outer slightly shorter than inner, slightly spreading, yellow; filaments inserted at base of tepals, outer 0.7-1.0 mm long, inner 1.0-1.5 mm long, both whorls shorter to as long as anthers; anthers oblong, latrorse, 1.5-2.0 mm long, apical and basal lobes slightly spreading, ca. 0.5 mm long; pollen yellow. Ovary subcylindrical to ellipsoid, 2.5-8.0(-11.0) x 0.7-2.0 mm, 3-locular, beaked distally for ca. 0.5-1.0 mm; style 0.3-0.5 mm long, white; stigma branches erect to spreading, tapering upwards from broad base, 1.2-3.0 mm long, ca. as long as stamens, yellow, densely papillose. Capsules narrowly ellipsoid, 2.5-11.0 x 1.0-2.0 mm, dehiscing irregularly along thin walls. Seeds depressed-ellipsoid, 0.53 x 0.43 mm; testa lustrous black, with ca. 15 longitudinal rows of closely set, transversally widened cells, outer periclinal cell walls with a central, conical, raised papilla. Flowering period: mid-September-late October.