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The short-stamen butterfly-lily is a perennial herbaceous plant of 10–65 cm (3.9–25.6 in) high that emerges from a small, globose to oval rootstock of 0.5–2 cm (0.20–0.79 in) in diameter. The plant dies-down during the dry, hot summer. Its line- to lance-shaped, straight or often sickle-shaped leaves of up to 70 cm (28 in) long and 3.5 cm (1.4 in) wide are upright or spreading, without hairs, and dark to yellowish green in colour. The flowering stem is about 3 mm (0.12 in) in diameter and coated in short glandular hairs. It is often less than 40 cm (16 in) high. The flowers are set in a lax, simple, seldom compound panicle with 6-17 flowers per peduncle. The peduncles and pedicels are slender, and the peduncles are short near tip of the inflorescence, but those at the base are much longer, up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long). The bracts are set with dense soft hairs, up to 8 cm (3.1 in) long, mostly dry, brown and papery, oval to elongated with parallel sides and with a pointy tip, almost completely enclosing the pedicels, and without recurved tips lower down. The zygomorphic perianth consists of six light apricot to yellow tepals of 12–20 mm (0.47–0.79 in) long and 4–14 mm (0.16–0.55 in) wide, in two whorls of three, with dark markings on the upper three tepals. The upper tepal id smaller than the others and only slightly recurved. …

The short-stamen butterfly-lily can be found on the west coast of the Western Cape province of South Africa between Saldanha in the north and the Cape Peninsula in the south, and inland as far as Franschhoek. It grows in seasonally moist sandstone or granite soils, at 50–650 m (160–2,130 ft) altitude, in an area with predominant precipitation during the winter half year. It mostly occurs in the following vegetation types: Boland Granite Fynbos, Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, Peninsula Granite Fynbos, Saldanha Granite Strandveld, Swartland Alluvium Fynbos, Swartland Granite Renosterveld, and Swartland Silcrete Renosterveld. It is considered a vulnerable species.

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