Plant succulent, acaulescent or with a stem up to 30 cm long, sometimes solitary, usually suckering and forming groups. Leaves about 20, densely rosulate, lanceolate-attenuate, spreading or deflexed, up to 20-25 cm, long, with a portion of the apex dried and twisted, 8-9 cm broad at base; upper surface flat to slightly canaliculate, green to brownish-green, with numerous dull white oblong spots irregularly scattered or sometimes more or less arranged in a series of undulating interrupted transverse bands; lower surface convex, paler green, varying from unspotted to obscurely or distinctly spotted, usually somewhat lineate; margins sinuate-dentate, armed with horny pungent deltoid teeth 3-5 mm long, 10-15 mm distant, straight or deflexed, the interspaces rounded. Inflorescence a branched panicle 1-1.5 met. high, sometimes two simultaneously. Peduncle flattened low down, 2-3 cm diam., brown, lightly covered with a greyish powdery substance, branched about the middle or higher with 5-8 arcuate-erect branches, the lowest sometimes with a branchlet and subtended at base by an ovate-acute sub-scarious many-nerved whitish bract up to 30 mm long, 22 mm broad at base. Racemes sub-densely capitate, 7-9 cm long and broad, the apex rounded, unicoloured coral-red, the buds suberect, the open flowers cernuous to sub-pendulous. Bracts deltoid-acuminate, thin, scarious, white, about 5-7-nerved, shorter than the pedicels. Pedicels 10-15 mm long, reaching 20 mm in the fruit. Perianth usually coral-red, 33-38 mm long, with a sub-globose basal swelling 8-9 mm diam., constricted above the ovary to 5-6 mm, thence slightly decurved and enlarging towards the throat, laterally compressed, the mouth usually wide open; outer segments free for 8-9 mm, nerves not visible, paler at the margins, the apices sub-acute, spreading; inner segments dorsally adnate to the outer for about three-quarters of their length, broader than the outer, with broader pale marginal border, and more obtuse more spreading apices. Filaments flattened, the 3 inner narrower and lengthening in advance of the 3 outer, pale lemon. Anthers the 3 inner and 3 outer in turn exserted 3-5 mm Style slightly yellower than the filaments, with the stigma at length exserted 3-5 mm, Ovary 8-9 mm long, 4 mm diam., finely 6-grooved, green. Note: The leaf sap dries purplish. Flowers mostly in July.
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