Flora of New Zealand Series

Robust, tuft-forming, to 30 cm high. Bulb large, to 7 cm diam.; scales brown. Leaves many, 30-60 × 1.5-4 cm, lorate, flat, narrowed above and below, margins ciliate with minute bristles. Flowers c. 1 cm long, open-rotate, variously coloured, often deep blue, in dense, many-flowered, initially corymbose, later elongate and conical, racemes; pedicels > flowers; bract 1, conspicuous, white, membranous; segments free or ± connate at base. Stamens all inserted near base of segments. Capsule subglobose, c. 7 mm diam., greenish-brown, beaked. Seeds few, ± 2.5 mm long, brownish.

N. Auckland City. S. Canterbury-Pigeon Bay, Rakaia, Ashburton, Timaru. Garden outcast in waste land.

(Mediterranean)

First record: Healy 1958: 546

First collection: "Ashburton, waste land-roadside-in grass, A. J. Healy 56/290, 31.10.1956, garden outcast: noted also at Temuka and Rakaia" ().

FL. 10-11.