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Perennial geophyte, similar to H. colchicifolia. Leaves narrow, up to 40 mm wide, veins flush with the leaf surface, few close to margins thickened and raised on the upper surface, hairs on blade sparse, strong on lower surface, along margins and midrib. Flowering stalks densely hairy. Flowering time Sept.-Feb.
Scapes 25–40 cm long, ± flattened in cross-section and 1.5–3 mm wide, strigose-villose in the upper part, glabrous in the lower part except for the hispid margins; the hairs unequally 3–9-armed (stellate) as in the leaf indumentum, or sometimes 2-armed, appressed to ± spreading.
Flowers 4–10, in a spiciform arrangement 4–10 cm long, subsessile, sometimes shortly pedicellate; bracts 10–30 × 1–3 mm, linear-lanceolate to narrowly triangular, pubescent on the abaxial midrib; pedicels ascending, 0–6(10) mm long, the upper flowers usually sessile.
Outer tepals 14–16 × 5–6 mm, lanceolate, coriaceous, strigose-sericeous abaxially, with margins ± involute; inner tepals 14–16 × 8–10 mm, membranous, broadly elliptic, glabrous or strigose on the midrib; the indumentum hairs stellate with one arm strongly developed.
Seeds black and glossy, 1.2–1.4 × 1.6–2 mm, ovoid; testa smooth or covered in closely-spaced papillae, the papillae minute varying from incipient dome-shaped undulations to sharply conical points, the cuticle smooth.
Geophyte, up to 400 mm tall. Leaves lanceolate or oblanceolate, erect. Peduncle hairy. Racemes many-flowered. Perianth very hairy on outside. Ovary also densely hairy. Flowers yellow.
Rhizome stout, vertical 4–8 × 3.5–5 cm, ovoid-turbinate to cylindrical, equatorially ringed by stout contractile roots.
Capsule 6–9 mm long and 4.5–5.5 mm in diameter, cylindric-turbinate.
Inflorescences 2–6, usually appearing with the young leaves.
Filaments 2–3 mm long; thecae c. 6 mm long.
Style c. 2 mm long; stigma 1.5–2.5 mm long.
Robust perennial herb to 50(60) cm tall.
