Crossyne

Deciduous bulbous herbs. Bulb 100-130 mm in diameter, with brittle, cartilaginous tunics, producing extensible threads when torn; neck transversally banded. Leaves (3)4-6, present after flowering, prostrate, biflabellate, broadly lorate; lower surface speckled with red; margin raised, fringed with stiff bristles. Inflorescence 30-220-flowered, in a globose head, 100-400 mm in diameter; scape strongly compressed, solid, 50-280 mm long, abscissing at ground level for seed dispersal; spathe valves 2, oblong, membranous. Flowers irregular, sometimes very weakly so, inconspicuous, blackish maroon, dusky pink or pale yellow; pedicels radiating, much longer than perigone, trigonous in cross section. Tepals connate basally into a short tube; segments narrowly oblong-lanceolate, reflexed. Stamens arising in perigone throat, declinate or spreading, +/- equal; filaments filiform, swollen and connate into a short tube at base; anthers dorsifixed; pollen bisulculate with spinulose exine. Ovary ovoid; ovules 2-4 per locule, unitegmic; style declinate, filiform; stigma minutely trifid. Capsule ovoid, loculicidal, with conspicuous transverse veining. Seeds fleshy, ovoid, +/- 5 mm in diameter, reddish green; testa stomatose; integument and embryo green. x = 11.