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Description
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Plants 120–300 mm high, usually forming clumps. Corm mostly 5–8 mm diam.; tunics of fine fibres, usually with large cormlets at base. Stem simple, rarely 1-branched. Leaves 4–6, ± lanceolate, all basal, ± 1/3 to 1/4 as long as stem, 2–4(–6) mm wide, main vein well developed, margins or half blades crisped and deeply undulate. Spike lax, secund, weakly flexuose, mostly 6–10-flowered; bracts mostly green, ± translucent at tips, turning purple along distal margins, 3–4 mm long, outer with 3 acute-attenuate cusps, obscurely 3-veined, inner 2-veined and acutely 2-toothed. Flowers zygomorphic with stamens unilateral, nodding with tepals held ± vertically, pink, yellow-green in throat edged with dark purple at tepal bases, unscented; perianth tube filiform, 2–3 mm long, tightly clasping style; tepals ovate, spreading ± at right angles to tube, 8–11 × 4–6 mm, outer tepals slightly narrower than inner. Filaments unilateral, ± 2 mm long, greenish white (drying yellow); anthers oblong, 2.0–2.5 mm long, yellow, parallel and horizontal, becoming slightly pendent, thecae acute, recurved at base, dehiscing incompletely by a narrow slit at base, yellow. Style dividing at base of filaments, branches 1.5–2.0 mm long, greenish white, falcate, recurved in distal third, tubular. Flowering time: mainly mid August to mid September.
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