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Description:
Plants 50–70 cm high with cataphylls red-brown or green. Corm 12–18 mm diam.; tunics coriaceous to papery, brown or straw-colored, evidently not becoming fibrous with age. Leaves 6 or 7, lower 4 or 5 basal, reaching to about spike base, lanceolate, 9–18 mm wide; margins lightly thickened and hyaline, main vein obscure; upper 1 or 2 leaves reduced, cauline, largely sheathing. Stem erect, simple, 2.5–3 mm diam. at spike base. Spike 10- to 15-flowered, nearly straight; bracts green, fairly soft-textured, half to nearly as long as internodes, 11–15 mm long, inner somewhat shorter to nearly as long as outer. Flowers dark to light purple fading to cream in throat, lower laterals each with deep purple spade-shaped mark in distal third surrounded by a lighter area; perianth tube c. 14 mm long, curving outward between bracts, widening near mouth; tepals unequal, dorsal arched to hooded, c. 12 x 9–10 mm, upper laterals smaller, directed forward and ultimately curving outward, lower 3 joined with upper laterals for c. 4 mm and to together for a further 1 mm, curving downward distally, usually slightly exceeding dorsal in profile, c. 8 mm long, narrowed below into claws, the limbs abruptly expanded, c. 4 mm at widest. Filaments c. 12 mm long, exserted 4 mm from tube; anthers c. 6 mm long, reaching to within 2 mm of dorsal tepal apex, yellow. Ovary c. 4 mm long; style dividing opposite lower half to middle of anthers, branches c. 2.2 mm long, broader in upper half, reaching almost to anther apices when fully extended. Capsules ellipsoid-ovoid, c. 12 mm long (only immature capsules known); seeds unknown. Flowering time: December to January.
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