Perennial herb with a thick and much-branched rootstock, often forming an extensive turf, with an adventitious root-system at maturity. Leaves crowded in rosettes, linear-elliptic to oblanceolate, (8–)20–40(–70) mm long, (1.5–)8–18 mm wide, thick, glossy, with 1 prominent vein, entire or with distant obscure teeth, glabrous or with long multicellular hairs on the adaxial edge of the margin near the teeth, or rarely pubescent on the upper surface; narrowing gradually to a slightly sheathing petiole with a tuft of golden-brown hairs in the axil. Scapes about as long as the leaves at flowering, elongating after flowering, glabrous or rarely pubescent. Spikes capitate (1–)2–3(–5)-flowered. Bracts triangular, acute, 1.5–3 mm long, 1–2 mm wide, with a broad herbaceous keel. Sepals elliptic, 2–2.2 mm long, 1–2.2 mm wide, glabrous with a narrow keel. Corolla: tube 1.5–2 mm long; lobes elliptic 0.7–1.2 mm long, 0.5–0.8 mm wide, acute with a prominent midvein. Stamens with filaments 4–7 mm long; anthers 1 mm long. Style 5–6 mm long. Ovary bilocular with 2 ovules in each loculus. Capsule ellipsoidal, 2 mm diam., obtuse, the upper hardened portion c. 2 mm long; the lower membranous portion 1–1.5 mm long. Seeds usually 4, elliptic, biconvex, reddish-brown with a very thin mucilaginous layer.
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