Compilation
Moraea spathacea

Plants large, 80–120 cm high, usually in small clumps or occasionally solitary. Corms 15–20 mm in diameter; tunics of brown, fine to coarse fibres. Cataphylls prominent, brown to pale, firm in texture, brittle, dry, entire or irregularly broken, or frayed at the apex. Foliage leaf solitary, much exceeding the stem in length and usually arching towards the ground, 12–16 mm wide, linear, flat or channelled; sheathing leaves 2–3, green or becoming dry and brown, 10–15 cm long, rarely imbricate. Stem simple (rarely 1-branched). Rhipidium solitary; spathes green or becoming dry and brown from the apex, attenuate, the inner 10–14 cm long, the outer about three-quarters as long as the inner. Flowers yellow with deep-yellow nectar guides on the outer tepals; outer tepals 35–50(60) mm long, the limb 20–35 mm long, spreading to reflexed; inner tepals 30–40 mm long, erect. Filaments 8–12 mm long, free in the upper half to one-third, anthers 8–12 mm long. Ovary 2–3 cm long, exserted from the spathes; style branches 12–18 mm long, the crests c. 10 mm long. Capsules 3.5–5.5 cm long, oblong-cylindric.