Description:
Plants 450–650 mm high. Corm 15–25 mm diam.; tunics soft-membranous, breaking irregularly into thin strips, rarely becoming almost fibrous, straw-colored, often with numerous small cormlets concealed around the base. Leaves 5 or 6, lower 4 or 5 more or less basal and largest, upper 1 or 2 cauline and reduced, narrowly lanceolate to nearly linear, plane, reaching at least to base of spike, sometimes slightly exceeding it, 7–15 mm wide, fairly firm-textured but margins and main veins not thickened. Stem sometimes with one branch, usually 3–4 mm diam. at spike base. Spike 8- to 12-flowered; bracts usually very large, firm, green or more often flushed red above or almost entirely, (35–)45–60(–70) mm long, outer twisted to lie between axis and flower, glossy within, inner about 1/2 as long or less. Flowers red on upper 3 tepals, greenish and tipped with yellow on lower, throat and tube yellowish, in life sometimes only the upper tepals exposed; perianth tube 27–32 mm long, lower part slender and erect, c. 15 mm long, expanding and gradually curved ouward into a cylindrical, more or less horizontal upper part, 12–16 mm long; tepals very unequal, dorsal largest, extended nearly horizontally, (20–)24–35(–40) z up to 14 mm, upper laterals directed forward, lanceolate, 12–20 x 12 mm, lower tepals reduced, laterals lanceolate, 8–15 mm long, lowermost nearly linear, 6–12 mm long. Filaments 25–30 mm long, exserted for up to 15 mm; anthers 8–12 mm long. Ovary c. 5 mm long; style dividing near to or slightly beyond anther apices, branches c. 4 mm long, much expanded in upper 1/2. Capsules obovoid-ellipsoid, 10–12 mm long; seeds angular with reduced winglike extensions at one or both ends, c. 4 mm long. Flowering time: August to October in Ethiopia, following the rainy season of July to November; March and April in Arabia, following the winter rains of November to February.
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