Plant 4-12 dm. high. Leaves few in a dense utriculate rosette, to 1 m. long, green and chartaceous except for a broad pale subcoriaceous channeled median portion, the outer leaves bladeless; sheaths broadly elliptic, 15 cm. long, densely brown-punctulate; blades narrowed from base nearly to middle but not truly petiolate, ligulate, acute, apiculate, 25-3 5 mm. wide, white-appressed-lepidote beneath, soon glabrous above, the basal half laxly serrate with straight or retrorse green teeth to 5 mm. long, the apical half sub-entire. Scape erect, slender, white-lanate, soon glabrous. Scape-bracts imbricate, lance-ovate, entire, membranaceous, bright red, pale-lepidote. Inflorescence bipinnate or the lower branches divided, oblong or pyramidal, 1-6 din. long, fer-tile throughout, lax at least toward base, densely white-floccose at first. Primary bracts narrower than the scape-bracts, the lower ones equaling or exceeding the branches, the upper ones no larger than the floral bracts. Spikes linear, distichously 8-to 1 6-flowered, dense. Rhachis straight or slightly geniculate, flattened next the flowers. Floral bracts spreading, broadly ovate, acuminate, pungent, 10-13 mm. long, equaling or exceeding the sepals, entire with free margins, carinate toward apex, nerved. Flowers sessile. Sepals asymmetric, 6 mm. long, mucronulate. Petals obtuse, 10 mm. long, bearing 2 fimbriate scales high above the base. Ovary subellipsoid, 3-angled, slightly enlarged in fruit. Ovules attached near summit of cell.
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