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Description:
Plants mostly 200–400 mm high, with fibrous collar around base. Corm 12–20 mm diam.; tunics of coarse, grey to light brown fibres, often with thickened vertical members. Stem usually simple or with 1 branch, 2 or 3(4) internodes long, sheathing leaves (25–)35–60 mm long, with dry, brown attenuate apices. Foliage leaf solitary, basal, linear, ± as long as stem or up to 100 mm longer, suberect to falcate, but often trailing distally, narrowly channelled or leaf halves folded together thus blade seeming terete, 1.0–2.5 mm wide opened flat. Rhipidial spathes green with dry, dark brown, attenuate apices; inner spathe 33–70 mm long, outer ± half as long. Flowers long-lived, opening pale pink fading to almost white, outer tepal limbs with white or pink nectar guides at bases edged at both ends with broad purple margins, spreading to slightly reflexed; outer tepals 24–30 × 8–10 mm, lanceolate-attenuate, claws 6–10 mm long, lightly hairy; inner tepals 18–25 × 4–6 mm, ± erect, apex attenuate entire or obscurely 3-lobed. Filaments 10–15 mm long, united in lower 1/2 to 2/3 in a smooth column; anthers 5 mm long, apiculate, purple, slightly exceeding stigma lobes; pollen red. Ovary ± cylindric, 7–10 mm long, exserted or initially partly included; style branches ± 10 × 2 mm, crests narrowly wedge-shaped to linear, 5–10 mm long. Capsules ovoid-ellipsoid, 13–17 mm long. Seeds angular, prismatic. Chromosome number 2n = 12. Flowering time: late September to November or early December at higher elevations.
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