Robust rosulate perennial from a stout rhizome.. Leaves broadly linear, tapering, 20–35 cm. long, 13–18 mm. wide, light green, thick, slightly glossy, the tip rounded.. Scapes few, stout, 35–60 cm. high, 10-ribbed; sheaths almost equalling the leaves.. Capitulum subglobose, 11–13 mm. diameter, greyish white; involucral bracts shorter than the capitulum width, oblong, yellow-brown, coriaceous, neatly imbricate in 3 series, subacute; floral bracts spathulate-angulate, firm, flushed blackish with paler, abruptly acute tip, white-pilose and concave at the widest part; receptacle villous; flowers trimerous, 3.0–3.5 mm. long.. Male flowers: sepals oblanceolate, free or almost so, 2.2×1.0 mm., blackish upwards, lightly keeled, white-pilose at the tips; petals unequal, exserted from the calyx, glandular and villous, the hairs white above the gland and hyaline below, the longest petal 2.5×0.8 mm., the other two 1.5×0.5 mm.; anthers dark brown.. Female flowers: sepals equal, blackish, oblanceolate-oblong, boat-shaped, 2×1 mm., white-pilose at the tip, villous around the keel with longer hyaline hairs; petals and ovary sessile; petals subequal, oblanceolate-oblong, densely villous with white hairs above the gland and longer hyaline hairs below, two 2.3×0.7 mm., the third slightly larger.. Seeds subglobose, 0.75 mm. long, brown with many small hair-like projections.. Fig. 2/1–7.
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