Plant acaulescent, flowering to ca. 90 cm long, with a 30-50 cm tall dull-green rosette, often tinged with purple-red. Leaves thin, 35-47(-60) cm long, much exceeded by the scape, often wine-purple outside; sheaths distinct, tapering into the blade, ovate-oblong, ca. 9.5-12 x 5 cm, with broad membranaceous margins, densely appressed-lepidote with brown-centered scales, brown to dark castaneous at the base; blades slightly arching, linear, 30-35 x 2.3-3 cm, narrowly rounded or triangular-acute, often apiculate, sparsely appressed-lepidote on both sides, upper side dull-green and the underside often purple-red (often paler at the upperside when dry) Inflorescence erect, laxly and polystichously compound of 5-7 spikes, becoming dense toward the apex, fertile part subglobose or ellipsoid in outline; scape 50-75 cm long, ca. 5 mm in diam., nearly glabrous, in upper part exposed and purple-red; scape bracts erect, the lower ones subfoliaceous and imbricate, the upper ones more ovate, thin, acuminate, much exceeding to much shorter than the internodes, sparsely appressed-lepidote, often purple-red; axis ample, slightly flexuous, angled, glabrous; primary bracts as the upper scape bracts, but more broadly ovate, spreading with the branches, exceeding the short peduncle of the spikes; peduncle 0.5-1 cm long, bearing a prophyl-like bract just beyond the spike, sparsely brown-floccose; spikes subglobose to ellipsoid, 2-3 cm long, 1.4-2 cm in diam., obtuse, very densely and polystichously 7-10(-20)-flowered, with one or a few reduced sterile bracts at the apex; rachis hidden, very short, angled; floral bracts clasping the flower, inflated-convex, incurved, stiff-coriaceous, with even or slightly veined surface, broadly ovate, 0.7-1.1 cm long, about 4 times as long as the internodes, much exceeded by the sepals, broadly rounded or obtuse-acuminate, often torn-incised, ecarinate, very sparsely and obscurely appressed-lepidote, lustrous-green suffused with purple or red. Flowers suberect, contiguous, sessile or pedicel ca. 2 mm long; receptacle obconic ca. 2 mm long; sepals firm-coriaceous, with even surface, obovate, 0.9-1.2 cm long, thin at the margins, broadly rounded, acuminate or emarginate at apex, evenly connate for ca. 2-3 mm, strongly curved, bluntly carinate or only thickened in the middle, the posterior ones fleshy alate-carinate in lower half, incurved, appressed-lepidote with minute brown-centered scales inside, only with a few scales outside; petals slightly divergent at the apex, ligulate, ca. 1.8 cm long, very loosely agglutinate, fleshy, broadly rounded, greenish-yellow or white; stamens included, just exceeded by the pistil, filaments loosely adnate to the petals, straight, flattened, dilated, subterete and about as wide as the anthers toward the apex; anthers dorsifixed (at 1/3-1/2), 2.5-3.2 mm long, sharply sagittate, basal lobes apiculate at maturity, acutish at the apex; ovary triangular-ovoid, 3.5-5 mm long, contracted into the slenderish style, stigma somewhat lobed Capsule cylindric, 2.3-3 cm long, attenuately acute, short-beaked; coma red-brown.
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