Leaves fasciculate, very variable in proportions, 5-9 dm. long, minutely appressed-lepidote; sheaths elliptic, 2-15 cm. long, often castaneous toward base; blades linear, acuminate, not narrowed at base, 10-65 mm. wide, densely serrate with straight brown spines to 3 mm. long. Scape much shorter than the leaves, 1-5 mm. thick, sparsely white-flocculose at first. Scape-bracts remote, lanceolate, thin, densely and coarsely serrate, bright red. Inflorescence pinnately compound, fertile throughout, sparsely white-floccose when young. Primary bracts like the scape-bracts, suberect, longer or shorter than the spikes. Spikes suberect, sessile, oblong, 15 mm. wide, dense, distichously 6-to 12-flowered. Rhachis straight, square, stout, wing-angled with the wings adnate to the base of the floral bracts. Floral bracts imbricate at anthesis, then spreading, broadly elliptic, acute, mucron-ulate, 10-17 mm. long, equaling the sepals, ecarinate, entire, nerved, chartaceous. Sepals asymmetric, elliptic, mucronulate, 7-10 mm. long, subfree. Petals acute, mucronulate, 13-16 mm. long, dark purple with pale margin when dry, bearing 2 fimbriate scales. Ovary much enlarged in fruit. Ovules borne on the upper half of the column, caudate. Berry ellipsoid, 7-10 mm. long.
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