Smooth, tufted, often robust perennial, 15-20 cm high from a simple or branched, caudiciform rhizome to 2 cm thick. Leaves linear-lorate to linear-triangular, 7-45 cm x 6-25 mm, compressed, flat to subconduplicate, margins thin, hyaline, entire, tip subulate, surfaces pale green to glaucous. Scape stiff, fistulose, terete to angulate-sulcate, distally 2-4.2 mm thick, often reddened, scape bracts (1-)2(-3) equidistant pairs, lance-linear to oblong, 1-6.5 cm; spikes cylindric-ellipsoid to lance-cylindric, 3.5-7(-10) x 1.5 cm, multiflowered, all bracts flowering or lowermost empty, erect, tightly spirally imbricate, ovate to oblong-ovate, 14-20 mm, acute or short acuminate, margins broad, thin, hyaline, dorsal area apically raised. Sepals 2, lateral, strongly folded, lance-elliptic, 15-23 mm, acute tips exserted, keels broad, entire; corolla 20-40 mm, blue-violet; anthers 3-4 mm; staminodes filamentous or lacking; lateral stylar appendages recurved, flabellate-clavate, 3-3.5 mm. Capsule obovoid, 6-10 mm, valve tips acuminate or sharply bifid, smooth; seeds variously faceted, ca. 1 mm, with several strong longitudinal ribs connected by transverse lower ridges.
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