Perennial herb with a short thick rootstock to 1 cm long, with an adventitious root system and also often a taproot at maturity. Leaves basal, in a rosette, usually + erect, linear-elliptic to lanceolate or elliptic (3.5–)7–26 cm long, 0.8–2.2 cm wide, acute, entire or with a few widely spaced, obtuse teeth with tufts of hairs on the upper surface towards the base of each tooth, the rest of the lamina usually almost glabrous but sometimes with hairs on the abaxial surface of the veins; tapering gradually toward the broadened base which obscures a grey-brown tuft of axillary hairs. Scapes 1–5 in number, sparsely pubescent to almost glabrous, slightly striate, 10–30 cm long at flowering. Spike (3–) 10–13 cm long, narrow cylindrical, at fruiting stage elongated with old flowers separated on the spike. Bracts concave, elliptic to ovate, acute, 2–3 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide with a glabrous to slightly pubescent prominent but scarcely keeled thickened medial strip 2/3 of the width. Sepals subequal, elliptic, 1.8–2 mm wide with a narrow carina 0.2 mm wide. Corolla: tube 1.8–3 mm long; lobes ovate, acute, 1.2–1.9 mm long, c. 1 mm wide with a prominent midvein. Stamens with filaments to 4 mm long, anthers 1–1.5 mm long. Style 2.5–5 mm long. Ovary bilocular, one loculus with 2 ovules, the other with 3, the apical ovule in a false loculus separated from the lower 2 by a swelling of the placenta. Capsule ovoid, 4–5 mm long, 2–3.3 mm wide, acute with scarcely any mucro, the upper portion hardened, the lower membranous portion c. 1.5 mm long. Seeds to 5, but usually only 2, elliptic, 2 mm long, 1 mm wide, biconvex, dark brown with a thin mucilaginous layer.
Home