It is a herbaceous plant with a tuberous rootstock from which 6-10 broad strap-shaped leaves arise. The lower stalk is about a metre high, and bears an umbel of 20-50 handsome blue flowers.
Description:—Rootstock short, tuberous, with fleshy cylindric roots. Leaves dark green, 6-10, basal, 20-60 cm. long, 2-4 cm. broad, strap-shaped, obtuse, glabrous. Peduncle O·25-1 metre high, terete, glabrous. Inflorescence a many-flowered umbel. Spathe-valves 2·5 cm. long, 2 cm. broad at the base, ovate, acuminate, withering in the mature inflorescence. Floral-bracts 2·7 cm. long, linear. Pedicels about 6 cm. long, terete, jointed at the apex. Flowers blue; perianth-tube 1·7 cm. long, 6 mm. in diameter; lobes 2-5 cm. long, 9 mm. broad, oblanceolate, obtuse. Stamens inserted at the throat of the perianth-tube; filaments 2·5-3 cm. long, arcuate; anthers oblong. Fruit a triquetrous capsule.
F.P.S.A., 1920.
2.
K.A. Lansdell del.