Plants 10–70 cm. high, immediately drying black when cut or when drying, often with a creeping stem.. Rhizome usually elongated, horizontal to ascendent; roots thick, spongy expanding distally to spindle-shaped tubers 1–3 cm. long.. Leaves rosulate, petiolate, petioles 10–20 cm. long, expanded and sheathing in lower parts; lamina broadly lanceolate, glabrous, never undulate, 12–50 cm. long, (3–)5–10 cm. wide, attenuate and apiculate.. Peduncle terete, leafless (or with a few sterile bracts connected to the inflorescence), stout, 2–50 cm. long, glabrous.. Inflorescence 5–30 cm. long, condensed or lax, usually unbranched, sometimes with 1–2 branches in lower part; rhachis ± scabrid; lower bracts 1.5–16 cm., ordinary flower bracts 1–2.5 cm., enveloping buds and pedicels.. Pedicels articulated in the upper third and in forms with reduced peduncle and condensed inflorescence, just below the flower; whitish, particularly above the articulation, 6–8 mm. long in fruit, 3–4-nate at the lower nodes.. Perianth whitish, sometimes with green tips, turning brownish immediately after anthesis, slightly urceolate; tepals patent above the constriction, 5.5–7 mm. long, 1.5–2.5 mm. wide, 3-veined.. Stamens shorter to as long as the tepals; filaments fusiform, 3–5 mm. long, widest in upper half, scabrid; anthers 1.5–2.5 mm. long.. Style slightly declinate.. Capsule triquetrous in cross-section, emarginate, (5–)7–13 mm. long, generally distinctly longer than wide.. Seeds saucer-shaped, several (± 8) per locule, 1.5–2 mm. across.
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