Plants monocarpic, with an erect stem to 40 cm tall in flower, basally with few or no persistent leaf bases, greenish or flushed with red, particularly in upper part, 6-7 mm in diam., covered in dense, slender, silky, barbellate hairs, mostly 5-7 mm. Basal leaves forming a lax rosette, rather pale green with a whitish midvein; basal and lower cauline leaves elliptic-oblanceolate, 4-7.8 × 0.7-5.4 cm, attenuate below into a narrow petiole 2.5-5.4 cm, margin entire or with several coarse teeth on either side, moderately covered in hairs similar to stem; upper cauline leaves similar to basal ones but gradually decreasing in size upward on stem, shortly petiolate or sessile; upper 3 sometimes forming a false whorl below inflorescence. Inflorescence a simple raceme, 7-14-flowered; bracts present in lower part of inflorescence, leaflike, lanceolate-ovate, 20-36 × 4-5 mm. Flowers semi-nutant to horizontal. Pedicel flushed with red, 12-25 mm, thickened somewhat at top, covered in spreading hairs, particularly at top. Petals 4 or 5, brilliant maroon, broadly obovate to elliptic-oblanceolate, 3.1-4 × 1.9-3.6 cm, margin finely and unevenly toothed. Stamens numerous, forming a distinct ring around ovary but not enveloping it; filaments similar in color to petals, linear; anthers bright yellow. Ovary greenish, with stiff ascending bristles, with a glabrous caplike stylar disk at top, disk pentagonal in outline, 5-6 mm in diam., slightly narrower than ovary, shallowly lobed at margin; styles 5-7 mm, glabrous, terminating in white 4-or 5-lobed capitate stigmas. Capsule unknown. Fl. Jul-Aug.
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