Robust, unbranched, erect shrubs 1-3.5 m tall; stems mostly simple, hollow, glabrous below and short pubescent above. Leaves clustered in a palmlike termi-nal rosette; blades of the principal leaves obovate to oblanceolate to broadly el-liptic, (10-) 15-36 cm long, 6-10 (-15) cm wide, usually 2-4 times as long as wide, apically abruptly narrowed to a short deltoid-acuminate tip, basally cuneate or tapering into a stout petiole 1-3.5 cm long, marginally somewhat sinuate, sub-entire to denticulate, the teeth often 0.3-0.6 mm long and dark purplish, glabrate or sparsely scurfy near the base on the upper surface, the lower surface with dense scurfy emergences. Flowers 6-8 cm long; pedicels solitary in the upper leaf axils, scurfy or glabrate, 11-24 cm long; bracteoles narrowly linear, scurfy, basal, spreading, denticulate, 1-2 cm long; hypanthium scurfy; calyx lobes linear-subulate to narrowly triangular, scurfy, denticulate, 1.8-3.3 cm long; corolla cream to pale greenish white, or yellowish, the lobes often purple or purple flecked, externally scurfy, internally glabrous, the tube 1.9-2.1 cm long, narrowest medi-ally, the lobes falcate, attenuate, strongly recurved, the 2 upper lobes 2-4 cm long, the 3 lower lobes 1.6-2.5 cm long; filament tube (3.1-)4.0-4.7 cm long, the upper half softly pubescent, the anther tube 13-15 mm long, the 2 shorter anthers with a dense tuft of white hairs, all basally pilose but otherwise glabrous. Berries depressed-globose, (1.5-)2-3.5 cm in diameter, surmounted by a free rim of the hypanthium 2-6 mm high; seeds slightly longer than wide, flattened, foveate-reticulate.
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