Perennial herb with a stout persistent taproot and rootstock. Leaves in a rosette, ascending to erect, oblong-oblanceolate (4–)6–20 cm long (0.8–)1–2 cm wide, pubescent, usually dentate with deltoid and often retrorse teeth, obtuse to acute, 3–5 veined, with a tuft of red-brown hairs in the axil. Scapes (5–)8–20 cm long, pubescent. Spikes 3–11 cm long. Bracts concave, ovate, 2.8–3.5 mm long, 1.8–2.5 mm wide, at least the lower ones as long as the sepals or nearly so, with a pubescent and very slightly angled keel 1/2 to 2/3 of the width. Sepals subequal, elliptic to broad elliptic, 2.8–3.5(–4) mm long, 1.5–2.5 mm wide, ciliate on the margin with a pubescent and scarcely-angled keel 1/4 to 1/3 of the width. Corolla: tube 2.5 mm long; lobes ovate, 1.5–2.3 mm long, acuminate. Stamens: anthers 1.6–2 mm long. Style 3–3.8 mm long. Ovary bilocular with 2 ovules in one loculus and 3 in the other, the upper separated by a swelling of the placenta. Capsule ovoid-globular, 3–3.6 (–4) mm long, acuminate-mucronate with the persistent stylar base. Seeds to 5 in number, oblong-elliptic, 1.5–1.8 mm long, brown with a thin mucilaginous layer.
Home
