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Description:
Plants 300–500(–600) mm high. Corm 10–20 mm diam., often with many small cormlets around base; tunics of coarse, black fibres. Stem sometimes ± trailing or suberect, usually much branched, flexed above sheath of foliage leaf and above sheathing leaves, sometimes bearing several to many cormlets in aerial axils, with attenuate sheathing leaves 3.5–8.0 mm long. Foliage leaf solitary, usually inserted at or near ground level, rarely some distance above ground, exceeding stem, channelled, 5–10 mm wide. Rhipidial spathes attenuate, inner 40–80 mm long, elongating after flowering to enclose developing capsules, outer ± 1/2 as long at flowering. Flowers fugaceous, pale or deep yellow, occasionally pale pink or flushed orange-pink, all tepal limbs with dark yellow nectar guides at bases spotted green, spreading, tepal claws suberect, forming a small narrow cup 7–10 mm deep, enclosing filaments and lower part of anthers; outer tepals obovate, 23–38 × 10–16 mm, claws 9–11 mm long, inner tepals slightly smaller, 7–12 mm wide. Filaments united in a cylindric column 6–8 mm long, papillate or smooth; anthers 4–6 mm long, diverging, often slightly exceeding style branches, yellow; pollen yellow. Ovary 7–10(–13) mm long; style branches diverging, 2.5–6.0 mm long, stigma lobes upright, pressed against anthers, receptive laterally, crests 1–2 mm long, directed inward. Capsules 17–20(–22) mm long, narrowly club-shaped. Seeds angular. Chromosome number 2n = 12, 18, 24. Flowering time: August to early October inland, September-early November along the coast.
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