Plants 24-35 cm. high. Corm 1-2 cm. in diameter, tunics of fine to coarse yellow brown to grey fibres, usually accumulating in a dense mass, often extending upward and with the dry cataphylls forming a thick neck. Foliage leaves (3-)4-5, the lower (2-)3-4 ± basal, linear (rarely lanceolate), reaching to at least the base of the spike or sometimes the lower shortly exceeding it, 1.5-3(-7) mm. wide, the margins not thickened, decreasing in size above, the uppermost usually cauline. Stem erect, unbranched. spike 4-10-flowered, inflexed at the base, straight, sheathed by the bracts; bracts 1.8-2.5 cm. long, green, or becoming dry and brown apically, firm and erect, clasping the stem, usually imbricate, 1-2 internodes long, the inner ± 2/3 as long as the outer. Flowers light to dark purple fading to cream in the throat and tube, the lower tepals each with a yellow median streak in the upper third; perianth-tube 1-1.2 cm. long, curving outward and widening above; tepals unequal, the dorsal ± 1.8 × 1-1.2 cm., arched over the stamens, the lower 3 united with the upper laterals for ± 4.5 mm. and to each other for ± 2 mm., narrowed below into claws, horizontal or the limbs flexed downward distally, in profile usually shortly exceeding the dorsal or ± as long. Filaments 1-1.2 cm. long, exserted 5-6 mm. from the tube; anthers 5-6 mm. long, usually purple, pollen yellow. Style dividing opposite the lower third of the anthers, branches 1-1.5 mm. long. Capsules 1-1.2 cm. long, narrowly elliptic, hard, ± woody.
