Romulea montana Schltr. ex Bég.

Plants 50-200 mm high. Corm globose, obliquely flattened with wide, fan-or crescent-shaped basal ridge as wide as or wider than corm and sometimes almost circular, 8-15 mm diam., tunics splitting into fine, parallel fibrils clustered into scalloped fascicles along ridge. Stem subterranean or exserted up to 150 mm. Leaves 4 to 6, lower 2 basal when stem developed, filiform to terete or compressed-terete, 4-grooved, 0.5-1.5 mm diam. Peduncles up to 5, semiterete, up to 60 mm long, spreading in fruit, each pair diverging at ± 90o; outer bracts green with narrow membranous margins, 10-22 mm long, striate (5 or 6 veins/mm), inner bracts with broad, brownish or brown-edged membranous margins. Flowers buttercup-yellow with yellow cup usually edged with dark brown blotches sometimes reduced to dark veins or rarely absent, outer tepals brown or reddish or faintly feathered on reverse; perianth tube funnel-shaped, 4-6 mm long; tepals elliptic, 15-35 x 5-10 mm. Filaments 5-6 mm long, pilose toward base, yellow; anthers 4-8 mm long, yellow. Style dividing near anther apices, branches ± 2 mm long, divided halfway. Capsules ellipsoid, 8-10 mm long.