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Grasslike plants 10-50 cm high. Roots many, wiry, fairly stout. Rhizome vertical. Leaves variable in size, filiform to linear, 5-50 cm long, 1-25 mm wide; lamina flat or rolled, tapering to the apex, below gradually dilated into a tubular, membranous base, mouth fimbriate; glabrous or pubescent with long straight hairs sometimes intermixed with short curly hairs; nerves in basal part of leaf sometimes persistent as fibres (if sclerenchymatous because of dry conditions). Inflorescence a simple raceme, usually many-flowered; several young racemes usually present near the base of the plant; scape arcuate near the base, protruding outside the leaf-rosette, 6-40 cm long; bracts small, narrow, cuspidate, margin fimbriate or smooth; pedicels 8-1 long, ascending, sometimes recurved in fruit. Flower with perianth segments ca. 1 cm long, typical: stamens typical; ovary turbinate, with ca. 8 ovules per cell, the lower usually aborting. Capsule globose 5 mm in diam. glabrous, constricted at the base. Seeds grey, smooth.
Inflorescences 1–6, sometimes appearing before the leaves, unbranched, erect, up to 50 cm long (including the peduncle), many-flowered, usually with one or more young racemes present near the base of the plant; peduncle (scape) mostly terete, glabrous or pubescent, mostly curving abruptly outwards near the base, then curving upwards outside the leaf rosette; racemes up to 45 cm long; bracts small, cuspidate; pedicels 7–21 mm long, ascending, sometimes recurved in fruit.
Leaves up to 60 cm long, 1.5–6 mm wide, filiform to linear, flat or three-angular in section with margins inrolled, tapering to the apex, widening below into a tubular membranous basal sheath, glabrous or pubescent with long straight hairs, sometimes intermixed with shorter hairs; nerves of the sheath sometimes persisting as fibres.
Perennial, grass-like herb. Leaves linear, up to 0.5 m long, glabrous or pubescent. Inflorescence simple raceme, up to 0.4 m high; scape arcuate near base, protruding outside leaf rosette; pedicels erect in fruit, ± 10 mm long. Flowers white with darker keel. Flowering time Nov.-Mar. Fruit a glabrous capsule.
Capsule without tubercles, 2–5 mm long, 2–5 mm in diameter, subglobose to 3-lobed, pale green to brownish, maculate with yellow flecks.
Seeds c. 3 per locule, ± flattened and sharply 3-angular, white-spotted becoming greyish-black when mature.
Roots many, fibrous to fairly stout, with a fusiform swelling at the ends.
Perennial grass-like herb, 15–70 cm tall from a small vertical rhizome.
Perianth segments 7–10 mm long, white.
