Compilation
Hypoxis retracta

Slender perennial herb 15–67 cm tall, erect to straggling, occasionally tufted with several pseudostems on a rootstock. Rhizome vertical, 1.5–3 × 1–2.5 cm and turbinate, becoming subglobose to cylindrical and up to 8 × 4.5 cm after many seasons, equatorially ringed by stout contractile roots. Leaves 5–12, usually grass-like, erect or sometimes straggling, the outer occasionally ± arcuate, conduplicate at least towards the base, overlapping and sheathing at the base, thinly loosely pubescent particularly on the margins and main veins, lamina glabrescent; sheaths membranous on the margins, the outer ones ± densely golden- to rusty-brown sericeous-villose, soon glabrescent; the inner leaves up to 67 cm × 3–10(20) mm (width measured when the folded blades are spread apart and flattened), linear, gradually tapering to a ± finely acute apex, prominently uniformly many-ribbed; hairs usually 2-armed, appressed or spreading, golden-brown to whitish; pseudostem 3–13 cm long and mostly up to 10 mm in diameter. Inflorescences 1–8, overtopped by the leaves, the first inflorescences appearing before the leaves. Scapes up to c. 42 cm long, somewhat flattened in cross-section, 1–2(3) mm wide, very narrowly strap-shaped, width reducing in steps as pedicels diverge, sericeous to villose with 2–4-armed brownish hairs. Flowers usually 4–5 (sometimes 2–10) in a raceme-like arrangement 2–9 cm long; bracts 7–30 mm long, subulate to linear-lanceolate; pedicels ascending, often stout, mostly 3–10 mm long, sometimes to c. 20 mm long, ± sparsely pilose. Tepals all ± similar, 8–11 × 3–6 mm, elliptic to lanceolate, ± involute on the margins, brownish villose or sericeous abaxially, the hairs unequally 3–6-armed(stellate) and ± densely appressed to spreading, with 1 arm more strongly developed than the others. Filaments 1.5–3 mm long; thecae 2.3–5 mm long, sagittate lobes to c. 1.5 mm long. Style 1–3 mm long; stigma 1–2 mm long. Capsules mostly 4–6 × 3–4.5 mm, or up to 8 × 4 mm, excluding the persistent perianth, turbinate or narrowly turbinate, circumscissile. Seeds black and glossy, 1–1.2 × 1.7 mm, subglobose; testa densely papillate, the papillae minute varying from incipient dome-shaped undulations to sharply conical points, the cuticle smooth.