Small, glabrous herbs with cormous stem-bases and fibrous roots. Scape 1, simple, often tinged reddish. Leaves few, basal and cauline, fleshy, subulate. Inflorescence a 1-10-flowered spike; flowers axillary in ovate, sheathing bracteoles; terminal flower usually rudimentary. Perianth glabrous, lemon-yellow; outer tepals free, broadly ovate or obscurely trilobed, spreading; inner tepals adnate for lower third to filament, spreading into narrow or broad wings about equalling stamen length. Anther becoming versatile at anthesis, from introrse to extrorse, by means of flexing filament-apex; locules ±reniform; pollen grains free. Ovary narrowly ellipsoidal, trilocular, glabrous; style straight but flexing at anthesis; stigma capitate. Fruit a fusiform capsule. Seeds ellipsoidal to ovoid, reticulate-rugose.
Home