Caulescent, slender, 7-12 cm high. Bulb ovoid, attenuate at the apex; tunics, ovate-lanceolate to ligulate, dark brown, with reddish-brown margins. Rhizome 4-6 cm long. Stem, rigid, twisting, more or less spiral, up to 12 cm long, with a hard polished pale brown cortex, sometimes branching, glabrous above, cano-puberulous towards the base, bearing a few puberulous scales. Leaves 4-9, terminally congested; petioles filiform, 1-1.8 cm long; leaflets 3, sessile, linear, conduplicate, often slightly falcate, 0.7-1.2 cm long, minutely emarginate, inconspicuously black-dotted, glabrous above, cano-puberulous beneath. Peduncles 1-fld., usually terminal, 0.6-1 cm long, adpressed cano-pubescent, with 2 small alternate bracts above the middle. Sepals lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 2-3 mm long, cano-pubescent, ciliate, darkening towards the apex. Corolla 1.2-1.5 cm long, deep ruby-magenta, with a funnel-shaped yellow tube; petals often reflexed, obovate, with a short claw, more or less obliquely truncate or sometimes acute at the apex, pubescent on the outer margin beneath. Filaments glabrous, the shorter 2-3.5 mm, the longer 3.5-6.5 mm long, edentate. Ovary pubescent on the upper half, the chambers 1-ovuled; styles pubescent below, glandular-pilose above. Capsule globular. Seeds without endosperm.
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