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Description:
Plants 400–1 000 mm high. Corm depressed-globose, 30–50 mm diam.; tunics coarsely netted. Stem usually simple, rarely with short erect branches. Leaves 3 or 4, lower 2 or 3 ± basal, uppermost leaf partly sheathing stem, 1/2–2/3 as long as spike, narrowly lanceolate, 6–15 mm wide, midrib and margins heavily thickened and hyaline; bract-like cauline leaves 2 or 3, sheathing. Spike (6)12 to 30-flowered; bracts herbaceous and reddish below, becoming dry and brownish apically, 18–30 mm long, inner enclosed, greenish, to 17 mm long, entire or forked apically apically for 1–2(–5) mm. Flowers zygomorphic, bright reddish orange or occasionally deep pink, paler in tube; perianth tube with lower part 17–20 mm long, included or shortly emerging from bracts, upper part ascending to horizontal, sub-cylindric, 22–30 mm long, ± 9 mm diam. at mouth; tepals obovate-oblong, 20–24 × 12–15 mm, all spreading widely. Filaments unilateral, arcuate, 35–45 mm long, well exserted from tube; anthers 7–10 mm long, violet. Style dividing between middle and apex of anthers, branches ± 6 mm long. Capsules suglobose to obovoid, to 10 mm long. Seeds elongate-angular, 4–5 × 2 mm, distal end ridged or shortly winged. Flowering time: late November to early February.
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