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Perennial, rhizomatous herb, 0.25-1.20 m high, grows solitary; stem slender, robust. Leaves lanceolate-acuminate, with dense venation, apex brown, margins usually translucent-brown. Spathes lanceolate, finely veined, margins and apex rusty brown. Bracts usually ovate, with dark irregular triangle at base and brown streaks at margins, apex acuminate and deeply lacerated. Inflorescence unbranched or a lax panicle; 1-or 2-flowered rhipidia, sometimes binate, mostly sessile; outer tepals ± equal to inner tepals. Ovary with trilobed stigma, each lobe deltoid and finely crested. Flowering time Aug.-Jan. Capsule slightly oblong, tricarpellate.
Flower clusters 4–14, terminal and axillary, 4–6-flowered; spathes 9–11 mm long, ovate, herbaceous with scarious transparent margins, inner bracts 8–10 mm long, scarious and transparent entirely or with herbaceous keels, the margins at first entire or lightly lacerate, becoming increasingly so.
[Subspecies admitted by Weimarck, l.c. 18 et seq. (1940) or Vincent, l.c. 229 et seq. (1985) are not recognised for the Flora Zambesiaca area and their nomenclature is not listed.]
Leaves several, mostly basal and about half as long as the stem, 2.5–7(9) mm wide, linear to narrowly lanceolate, cauline leaves progressively shorter above.
Stem 2–6-branched (rarely simple), compressed, more or less elliptic in section, 2-angled but not winged, the branches fairly short, slender and erect.
Capsules ovoid-obovoid, 5–7 mm long, sub-sessile or on pedicels up to 4 mm long.
Style 6–7 mm long, exceeding the anthers, apex 3-lobed.
Filaments 4 mm long, anthers c. 1.5 mm long.
Flower blue, more or less sessile.
Inflorescence sometimes branched
Tepals c. 12 × 4–5 mm, obovate.
Flowers bright or pale bluish
Slender herb 1-3 ft. high
Plants 25–90 cm high.
Grass-like leaves
