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Description:
Deciduous geophyte, mostly 100–180 mm high. Corm 12–18 mm diam., outer tunics of mostly relatively fine vertical fibres, outside, inner layers entire, firm-papery, producing cormlets around base. Cataphylls green or turning purple to brown with age. Stem slightly inclined, occasionally with 1 or 2 short branches. Leaves 4 to 6, lowermost short, next lowest 1 or 2 longest, usually shortly exceeding spike, those above progressively shorter, blades ± linear, plane, 2.0–3.5 mm wide, leathery, with main vein slightly thickened; juvenile plants with ± filiform leaves. Spike suberect, secund, crowded with internodes 6–9 mm long, flexuose, up to 15-flowered; bracts green, imbricate, outer 18–25 mm long, reaching to base of fourth bract above, keeled, keel and margins hyaline, inner ± 3/4 as long as outer, 2-keeled, subacute or minutely notched at tip. Flowers zygomorphic, nodding, creamy-white with blue mauve diamond-shaped marking in middle of lower tepals, white in throat and tube and marked blue-mauve at bases of tepals, evidently unscented; perianth tubeobliquely funnel-shaped, 8–10 mm long; tepals (when alive) unequal, lanceolate, dorsal 14–18 × 10–12 mm, arching over stamens and lower tepals, upper laterals 9–17 × 6–7 mm, lower tepals joined to upper laterals for 2–3 mm, 9–15 × 3–6 mm, curving downward distally. Stamens unilateral, arcuate; filaments ± 5 mm long; anthers ± 7 mm long, parallel and contiguous, curving upward distally, purple with lines of dehiscence white; pollen yellow. Ovary narrowly obovate, ± 2.5 mm long; style arching over stamens, dividing opposite or shortly beyond anther tips, branches diverging, spathulate, ± 3 mm long. Capsules broadly ellipsoid, 11–13 × 5–6 mm. Seeds ± ellipsoid, 1.2–1.7 × 0.9–1.3 mm, smooth, light to dark orange-brown, without wing. Flowering time: mainly mid December to late January, sometimes in February.
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